PS: There is no part 3 in this post series. By a mistake I jumped to
part 4 after part 2.
I visited the historic town of Sibasagar today. This was the capital
of the Ahom dynasty. I reached Sibasagar just past noon. It is about
86km away from Dibrugar.
The heart of Sibasagar is a big lake – supposedly constructed by one
of the maharanis. Near the lake is a temple complex housing three
temples – the middle one Shivadol, on the left Devidol, and on the
right Vishnudol. 'dol' means temple in assamese. The place being
Sibasagar, naturally, Shivadol is the larger temple.
Inside the Shivadol is a shivaling unlike any I've seen before. The
garbha-gudi has two shivalings. One, man-made, resembles a real
shivaling. The other, real shivaling, is actually a shivaling shaped
inverted hole in a rock (or so the pujari told me!). A small duct
runs from here directly to the tank, resulting in rodents making there
presence inside the sanctum sanctorum! From the outside, the temples
have the regular carvings from historical/mythological (depending on
your perspective!) stories. The carvings are slowly decaying.
Assamese architecture is a bit different compared to anything else
I've seen – wait for the pictures for more.
To visit the temple, I had to park my bike near a shop. The
shopkeeper was joking about me carrying a bomb in the bag. Sibasagar
has a sizeable paramilitary presence, pointing to security issues..
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