Tamreswari temple (also Dikkaravasini) is a temple for the tribal goddess called Kecaikhati[7] is situated about 18 km away from Sadiya in Tinsukia district, Assam, India. The temple was in the custody of non-Brahmin tribal priests called Deoris.[8][9] Some remains suggest that a Chutiya king built a wall or the temple itself in the year 1442.[10][11] There were four different kinds of Deori priest who looked after the temple. The Bar Bharali and the Saru Bharali collected dues of the temple and provides animals for sacrifice. The Bar Deori (Deori Dema) and the Saru Deori (Deori Surba) performs the sacrifice and sung hymns.[12] The temple was dedicated to Kechaikhati/Pishasi (kechai means raw and khati means eat), a powerful tribal deity or a form of the Buddhist deity Tara,[13] commonly found among different Bodo-Kachari groups.[14][15][16][17][18][19]
The worship of the goddess even after coming under Hindu influence was performed according to her old tribal customs.[20]
The inscription describes that the walls of the temple have been built using bricks (Ichtaka) by the son Mukta Dharmanarayan of the old king (name not specified) in the Saka year 1364 (1442 AD).
The name Tamresari
The wall and doors of the temple were well designed with beautiful works. There were two giant elephant sculptures with silver tusks at the main door. The walls were made without any mortar. The temple roof was made of copper, that's why it is called Tamreswari. The whole temple was surrounded with brick walls and on the western wall there was a place for human sacrifice.[24]
Architecture
The roof of the Tamresari temple was originally sheeted with copper as mentioned in the Changrung Phukan Buranji (1711 AD), from which the name is derived. In 1848, when Dalton visited the site, he found a stone structure, but the copper roof was already removed. As per T.Block who visited the site in 1905, this square structure in the corner cannot have been the main building inside the complex and the brick wall evidently enclosed some sort of a grand temple in the center which has disappeared with time. According to S.F. Hannay, the present temple complex was as near as possible square with the doorway to the west. There was a substantial brick wall, about 4.5 feet thick rising to the height of 8 feet, on the foundation of rudely cut blocks of sandstone. The entrance of the complex was on the west face, where there had been a stone enclosure and door. The ruins of the gateway which remains include the lintel carved on the edge in a chain of lotus flowers, some ornamented small pillars and an elephant statue. The three blocks forming the doorway, each of 7.5 feet long and 2 feet by 18 inches in girth, along with the blocks of the projecting wall, were reddish porphyritic granite of an adamantine hardness. There was another stone gateway at the southeast corner leading to the stream, in the bed of which are several carved and plain blocks of granite and sandstone.[25] According to Debala Mitra(1956), the temple was originally Chaturayatana, i.e. having four shrines, built of sandstone and granite and located in the south-east section of the rectangular brick enclosure, prakara roughly measuring 208 ft by 130 ft. The compound wall was 4 feet wide and 8 feet tall and had a stone gateway on the eastern side. In the floods of 1959, due to deposit of silt in the banks of Paya river the structure was completely submerged in the waters.[26]
^"She is popularly known as Kechai-khati, the eater of raw flesh."(Gogoi 2011:235) "Perhaps, Kechai-khati was a tribal deity who was so influential at the time of the coming of the Ahoms that even they could not possibly ignore her and decided to continue her worship according to the old tradition."(Gogoi 2011:236)
^"Towards the north of the Lohit River is the Nang Hoo Toungh territory. The third phi muang is, as the prefix "nang" (lady) indicates, a female divinity. The territory it is said to protect is more easily identifiable than that of the two-previous phi muangs. Nang Hoo Toungh is known in Assamese as Kesakhati ("person who eats raw meat")."(Laine 2019:17–18)
^"Population by Religious Communities". Census India – 2001. Ministry of Home Affairs, Government of India. Retrieved 1 July 2019. Census Data Finder/C Series/Population by Religious Communities
^"[I]n the eastern most boundary of Assam (near Sadiya) we find the pitha of a very interesting goddess. She is popularly known as Kechai-khati, the eater of raw flesh. The Kalika Purana, a 10th century work written in Kamarupa mentions her as Tamreswari, referred also as Dikkaravasini." (Gogoi 2011:235)
^"In the case of Tamresvari Temple, the goddess was served by the Deoris, the representatives of the priestly class among the Chutiyas. They were permitted to continue their religious service to her including human sacrifice even after their subjugation by the Ahoms in 1523."(Shin 2023:70)
^"
As mentioned earlier, Mukta-dharmanarayana, who constructed the wall of Tamresvari (alias Kecaikhati, Dikkaravasini) Temple or the temple itself in AD 1442"(Shin 2023:69)
^"The Pãyã-Tãmresvari (Dikkaravãsiní) temple inscription announces that King Dharmanãrãyana raised in 1364 Šaka [1442 AD] a wall (prãkãra) around the temple of Dikkaravãsiní, popularly known as Tãmresvari."(Neog 1977:817)
^"There were four different kinds of priests of whom each was attached to a particular division (khel), viz., the Bar Deori (Deori Dema) and the Saru Deori (Deori Surba); the Bar Bharali and the Saru Bharali. It was the duty of the two Bharalis to collect the dues of the temple and to provide animals for sacrifice. The two Deoris performed the sacrifice; they alone entered the temple and sung hymns, which were scarcely understood by the common people."(Shin 2023:70)
^"In her fearsome self this deity bears so many resemblances to the fierce manifestation of Buddhist Tara that many scholars have suggested a Buddhist origin for her"(Gogoi 2011:235–236)
^The Tiwas, as well as the Koch, also worshipped Kechai Kati. The Koch general Gohain Kamal built temples dedicated to Kesai Khati in Khaspur for the Dehans who were Tiwa and Mech soldiers from Gobha, Nellie and Kabi.
^"There is at Sadiya a shrine of Kechai Khati the tutelar deity of the Kacharis, which the Dimasa rulers continued to worship even after the establishment of their rule in Cachar." (Bhattacharjee 1992:393)
^"The most famous temple of the Chutiyas was that of Kechaikhati, their primodial female deity.(Dutta 1985:49)
^"(S)he [Kesai Khati] was incorporated into the Sanskritized cosmos of goddess tradition and as her tribal attributes were so strong to be denounced as non-Brahminical, her worship continued according to old customs."(Gogoi 2011:236)
^Kakati (1989), pp. 62–63:"(D)uring the reign of king Gaurinath Singh (1780 - 1795), when the Chutiya priests harried by the Burmese invaders abandoned their ancient possessions in the vicinity of the temple. According to the Deori priests the downfall of the Ahoms was largely due to the neglect of this religious rite"
^"Towards the north of the Lohit River is the Nang Hoo Toungh territory. The third phi muang is, as the prefix "nang" (lady) indicates, a female divinity. The territory it is said to protect is more easily identifiable than that of the two-previous phi muangs. Nang Hoo Toungh is known in Assamese as Kesakhati ("person who eats raw meat")."(Laine 2019:17–18)
Shin, Jae-Eun (2023), Kecaikhaiti, Eater of Raw Flesh: A Profile of the Multifaceted Goddess in the North-East, Manohar Publishers & Distributors
Sircar, D.C (1973), "Journal of Ancient Indian History", Journal of Ancient Indian History, 6
Bhattacharjee, J. B. (1992), "The Kachari (Dimasa) state formation", in Barpujari, H. K. (ed.), The Comprehensive History of Assam, vol. 2, Guwahati: Assam Publication Board, pp. 391–397
Gogoi, Kakoli (2011). "Envisioning Goddess Tara: A Study of the Tara Traditions in Assam". Proceedings of the Indian History Congress. 72: 232–239. ISSN2249-1937. JSTOR44146715.
Dutta, Sristidhar (1985), The Mataks and their Kingdom, Allahabad: Chugh Publications
Neog, Maheswar (1977). "Light on a Ruling Dynasty of Arunachal Pradesh in the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Centuries". Annals of the Bhandarkar Oriental Research Institute. 58/59: 813–820. ISSN0378-1143. JSTOR41691751.
Kakati, Banikanta (1989), The Mother Goddess Kamakhya, Guwahati: Publication Board
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