পৃষ্ঠা:অসমীয়া ব্যাকৰণ আৰু ভাষাতত্ত্ব.djvu/৪৯

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এই পৃষ্ঠাটোৰ মুদ্ৰণ সংশোধন কৰা হোৱা নাই

INTRODUCTION I “I believe we have good grounds for supposing that Assam or Kamarupa was amongst the earliest established of the Eastern Aryan settle- ments. Bhagadatta, king of Kamrup. is mentioned as a warrior in the Mahabharata and in the antiquities and traditions of the country, and we have proof of its having passed through several phases of faith,Buddhism, Adi Buddhism, Sivaism and Bisnuism, and indication of many fierce struggles for ascendancy by the different sects. | “Sivite shrines built on the ruins of a different type of temples, apparently Buddhist, around in Kamrup and to many of them the test of antiquity by which the age of the deposits in Egypt were calculated might be applied as they are found in places far below the surface. | ‘Wilson observes in the preface to his Visnu Purana :—It is a singular and as yet Uninvestigated circumstance that Assam or at least the north-east of Bengal (i.e., Kamarup) seems to have been in a great degree the source from which the Tantrica and Sakta corruptions of the religion of the Vedas and Puranas proceeded.” “It appears from the earliest notices of Kamrup that the Aryans who first occupied it were subsequently regarded as infidels by their western brethren, that is, in all probability they were Buddhists, and some of the oldest temples are of Buddhist origin. The great temple of Hajo, on the north bank of the river, contains still a large image of Buddha” or Mahamuni, as the principal object of worship, attracting yearly to its shrine thousands of worshippers from Bhutan and Tibet; but it is now. also a place of pilgrimage for Hindus from all parts of India, the object of worship being styled by them “Madhab". | “The existing religious establishments in Assam are monasteries on a large scale...... ...........The older head-priests were probably Kalitas, who called themselves Kaists. It appears certain that there were no Brahmans with the earlier Aryan colonists."। | The Assamese social system supports this view to a great extent. Traces of some at least of the ancient social laws and customs of the Aryans, which are still current in Assam, may be gleaned from the Vedic literature and other sources. These are peculiar to Assam and unlike any- thing of the kind wactised by the Hindus elsewhere. I shall refer to a few of them. | Relion -We all know that the religion of the Indo-European Aryans was a form of nature worship. The religion of the Kalia invaders of Kamarupa was also the same. That form of religion is now almost forgotten in India. Take, for instance, the Assamese Bihu festivals. They appear uncnected with the modem Hindu religion. But originally they