JOURNAL 



OP 



THE ASIATIC SOCIETY. 



No. 40.— April, 1835. 



I, — Description of Ancient Temples and Ruins at Chdrdwdr in Assam. 

 By Captain G. E. Westmacott, Assistant, Governor General's Agent, 

 N. E. Frontier. 



Towards the close of November last, I had occasion to proceed on 

 public duty into Chardwar, a small district in the northern division of 

 Central Assam, being on the north bank of the river Brahmaputra 

 between Lat. 26° 32' and 26° 51', and Long. 92° 19' and 92° 55'. It 

 has its name from conducting to four passes of Bhutan, and is bound- 

 ed on the north by hills of various altitude, situate at the base of the 

 Himalaya, and inhabited by three wild tribes of mountaineers, called 

 Duphlas, Akhds, andKupah Chowahs* ; the Brahmaputra, confines it on 

 the south ; to the East it has the Bhairavi river, which divides it 

 from Nondwar, and to the west the river Rhotas, which separates it 

 from the small district of Chuteah. 



I think it necessary to state thus much in the way of introduction, 

 to point out the precise locality of the ruins I am about to describe, as 

 it is doubtful if many of my readers are aware of the geographical 

 position of a district placed in so remote a corner of our possessions. 



In the south-east angle of Chardwar, a chain of granite hills, rising 

 from two hundred to five hundred feet above sea level, and clothed 

 with grass and forest trees, sweeps outwards in a crescent form from 



* Kupah Chowah is a corruption from lcup6.s-ch.or or cotton stealer, a name 

 to which the people are well entitled from their predatory habits ; but the 

 Chardwarians stand in much awe of these robbers, and shrink from bestowing 

 on them so uncourteous an appellative. They come of the same stock with the 

 Akhas, from whom they differ in few respects, and are said to have divided into a 

 separate clan about sixty years since in the reign of Lachmi' Singh king of 

 Assam. 



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