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I recall with nostalgia the day I visited Khaspore, the Capital of Hirhamba Kingdom (Now known as Cachar), after fifty years, precisely to be on September 18, 1957.
“It is only about thirty kilometers from Silchar. It is so near to Silchar yet so far from it! Silchar belonged to now Khaspore belonged to then and in between the citadel of Kachari kingdom and present Cachar lie two centuries or more. Does my voice reach you, the people of the valley of South Assam? Or does it sound like the ghosts’ speaking from beyond two centuries??And yet I am your contemporary! But do I feel like
Rana Chandi Temple at Khaspore that when I am here in the place of ruins of a past glory, threading along the alleys of the broken palaces and cracked temples? When you come here first, you will feel like trespassing in the land of the dead, as if you have broken a spell, a meditation! Rusting of withered and dry leaves underneath, as you pass, will give you sense of guilt of one, who by his unwarranted entranced has scared away the dead years that set conferring engrossed in deep deliberations. But as moments pass, the last ring of the buzz of modern activity of Cachar’s capital Silchar will die-out from your mind and the spirit of the scene will creep into your soul, and like a ghost of the past who will take you by and by a couple of centuries back to a jungle covered valley very much like the present scene minus the skeletons of human architecture, that now lies strewn here and there. It is a valley covered with dense forest, and around rises a chain of proud hills forming as if were the galleries of a Roman Amphitheatre. A refugee King intrudes into the woodland recess of Nature and then art prevails and Nature recedes, and in the place of mighty rocks, there appear mighty places and gorgeous temples, and instead of the flowery bowers of the wild there appears by the touch of magic band of human skill, a flower garden and the lovers’ bower with many a fountain watering the flowering beds. The buzz of men and women and the bustle take the place of chirping notes of birds and crickets, sharply broken by the roars of the beasts and trumpets of elephant herds . Thus Khaspore sprang out of a wilderness in order to accommodate a ‘Haidamba’ King of Kachar. A prosperous capital once but alas, now only a memory of it! And that memory, my countrymen, is saddened by the relics that try in vain to prevent history from sinking into an idle legend. Living so near it , you live afar. If you want to communicate with the past, come along with me and here is the portal. Kahspore stands as a witness to the rise and fall of kings and kingdoms . And an explorer approaching along from the south would have to divert to right U-turn near Morley High School on Silchar- Kumbhirgram road towards the present Thaligram T.E. negotiating
Kalachand Ashram, fields and meadows, hamlets and habitats and lo and behold the past invites
the present. He would come across a wire net enclosure wherein once considered the land of El Dorado now remains captive in the hands of Archeological Survey of India. As you enter the enclosure,you will find at your right a new built room nurturing in its caring cradle a couple of stone inscriptions and to your right the temple of ‘Ranachandi’, the deity of Haidamba Kings. All over grown with green mosses, broken here and there with the black traces of rains of centuries, and spots deplastered by time, with bricks protruding like teeth, the temple stands majestic and massive in structure, but sad and burdened with reminiscences of a prosperous past. The mortar engravings, like those ‘on Grecian Urn’, on the walls bespeak high artistic sense of architect, and so also does a statue of a tiger, now lying detached outside, but perhaps originally, a part of the image, the carrier of the goddess. Slowly and steadily as he passes by the pond and advances ahead further, our explorer catches a glimpse of a two-storied , worn-out,-but strong enough to stand,- mossed building having twelve majestic arched doors. Melancholy, impressive, lonely, yet charming and beautiful, the historical palace is a palatable dish for historians and explorers. The brick stair-case on the southern part of it has become, by the constant showers and storms, simply a slope still seems to be accessible.
How once these were treated by the living glories of ‘ Cachar ‘! And now,“ Ruined glories,flown delights, sunk mid rumours of old wars !” This building is named Baroduary (Baro)Twelve (duary)doors, and this was probably the royal palace of the then kings and princes.Our explorer now advances further and finds nothing but a deep stream which has guarded the palaces for centuries. From there he advances to the North and he finds another arch like temple with magnificent carvings. This
temple is called ‘Ranachandi’. But this Ranachandi, according to the local legends, is not the temple of the goddess Chandi but the armory storing up the terrible weapons (Chanda) of war (Rana). Away from the armory, on the other side of the stream, can be seen the ruins of the ancient temple of lord Shiva, established by Kachari kings. Now in the place of the magnificent temple stands a homely structure, built on public charity, where the priest-in-charge still claims to worship daily the same deity then Kings and Nobles adored.Then the explorer retraces his steps, and when he is back on the Tea garden road ahead, he sees another temple like structure now in ruins. This was the Royal ‘Bath’, known as ‘Snanghar’. The course of the Madhura river then lay by its side; but now, like the glory of Haidambas , the current of the river has also receded from the path of ancient kings of ‘Kachar’! A little further North-East, there can be seen the remains of majestic Royal Gate Way of Khaspore. But where can be found its glaze and glory? Now only the name ‘Singha Dwar’ remains, but where has fled the ‘Singha’, the lion of ‘Kachar’?
While one roams among the skeletons of the glorious past here in Khaspore, the mind travels faraway from the dim and bustle of modern civilization into the glamour and peace and religion of an Oriental Royal city . But now all that has faded away, and so will it surely someday,
the living present with its din and bustle of modern civilization. For, if Khaspore goes, will Silchar remain?”
H.M.Gulgulia