Home›Abrahamic (Monotheistic)›Where Practised›AssamRegionAssamAlso Known As AssameseSouth AsiaDocumented History and SocietyVerifiedAssam is a state of northeastern India, occupying the Brahmaputra river valley between the eastern Himalayan foothills and the Meghalaya plateau. It is one of the most religiously layered regions of South Asia: the Shakta pilgrimage site of Kamakhya near Guwahati, built around a stone held to be a fallen part of Sati's body, ranks among the most important tantric centers in the subcontinent, and the Vaishnava reform of the fifteenth century saint Sankardeva, the Ekasarana Dharma, spread through a network of satra monasteries that still anchor Assamese religious life. Islam arrived with medieval trade and conquest and remains the faith of a large minority. Alongside these stand the indigenous religions of Assam's many hill and plains peoples, among them Bathouism, the worship of Bathou Borai at a living sijou plant altar practiced by the Bodo, whose homeland lies in Assam's western districts.FactsLearn MoreAssamConnectionsIn the Other AtlasesSourcesComments (0)Reader Challenges (0)FactsGeographyLatitudeWell-attested26.2 degrees north 1Approximate reference point, rounded to one decimal place; a large or historical region has no formal center, so this coordinate is conventional, not a precise boundary claim.LongitudeWell-attested92.9 degrees east 1Approximate reference point, rounded to one decimal place; a large or historical region has no formal center, so this coordinate is conventional, not a precise boundary claim.Modern AreaWell-attestedAssam, a state of northeastern India in the Brahmaputra river valley. 2TraditionsPrincipal Religious TraditionsWell-attestedShaktism and tantric Hinduism, centered on the Kamakhya temple near Guwahati; the Ekasarana Dharma of Sankardeva, a Vaishnava reform tradition organized around satra monasteries; Islam, established since the medieval period; and Bathouism, the indigenous religion of the Bodo, centered on the sijou plant altar. 2Sacred and Liturgical LanguagesWell-attestedAssamese, the state's dominant language and the liturgical language of the satra tradition; Sanskrit, for Vedic and tantric ritual; and Bodo, in which Bathouism's oral tradition is carried. 2Learn MoreThe Kamakhya Temple and the Rite That Needs No Image Kamakhya, on Nilachal Hill above Guwahati, is counted among the Shakti Peethas, the network of sites tradition holds mark where a part of the goddess Sati fell as Shiva carried her body across the sky in grief, and Kamakhya is honored as marking the yoni, the embodiment of the goddess's generative power. The sanctum holds no image at all, only a natural rock fissure kept moist by an underground spring and worshipped directly as the goddess herself, a form of worship distinct from the anthropomorphic icons that dominate most Hindu temple ritual elsewhere in India. The temple standing today was rebuilt in 1565 under the Koch king Naranarayana, replacing an earlier structure destroyed in Hussein Shah's 1498 invasion of the Kamata kingdom, and the reconstruction fixed Kamakhya's present architecture, a beehive shaped shikhara distinct to the Assamese temple style. Each June the temple closes for three days for the Ambubachi Mela, observing the goddess's menstruation as a season the earth itself is held to become fertile, and reopens to enormous crowds of pilgrims and tantric practitioners drawn by a festival built around a bodily reality most temple traditions treat as ritually impure rather than sacred, marking Kamakhya as one of South Asia's principal centers of tantric practice.AssamFilter Results1 entryPlace of OriginAllHejaz (1)DenominationsAllAhmadiyya (1)Alawites (1)Alevism (1)Ibadism (1)Ismailism (1)Kharijites (1)Nation of Islam (1)Quranism (1)Salafism (1)Shia (Twelver) (1)Sufism (1)Sunni (1)Wahhabism (1)Zaidiyyah (1)ScripturesAllAl-Istibsar (1)Al-Muwatta (1)Buyruk (1)Da'a'im al-Islam (1)Hadith (1)Jami at-Tirmidhi (1)Jami' al-Rabi' (1)Kitab al-Kafi (1)Man La Yahduruhu al-Faqih (1)Musnad al-Imam Zayd (1)Sahih al-Bukhari (1)Sahih Muslim (1)Sunan Abu Dawud (1)Sunan an-Nasa'i (1)Sunan Ibn Majah (1)Tahdhib al-Ahkam (1)The Quran (1)Origin EraAll610 (1)Conception of the DivineAllMonotheistic: one God (1)Status TodayAllLiving tradition, practised today (1)Establishment StatusAllVaries by Province (1)Closed Practice StatusAllPartly restricted: some elements are closed to outsiders (1)Giving Obligation EnforceabilityAllCodified Obligation With Consequences (1)Usury PositionAllInterest of any kind on a loan is forbidden (1)Marriage PositionAllMarriage may licitly be polygynous (1)Sexuality PositionAllSame-sex orientation or practice is held to bar full membership or participation (1)Kind of TraditionAllAbrahamic (Monotheistic) (1)Show ResultsIslamAssamConnectionsAssociated WithBodo, Pantheons Well-attested Source Encyclopedia of ReligionMircea Eliade (ed.); Lindsay Jones (ed., 2nd ed.)tier 1Modern AreaIndia, Countries Well-attested Source GeoNames: GeoNames search for AssamOriginated HereShaktism, Denominations Well-attested Source Encyclopedia of HinduismDenise Cush, Catherine Robinson and Michael York (eds.)tier 1Regions Where This Is PrincipalHinduism, Religions Well-attested Source Encyclopedia of ReligionMircea Eliade (ed.); Lindsay Jones (ed., 2nd ed.)tier 1Islam, Religions Well-attested Source Encyclopedia of ReligionMircea Eliade (ed.); Lindsay Jones (ed., 2nd ed.)tier 1In the Other AtlasesUsed InAssameseAlso in Language Atlas: which uses this subject.SanskritAlso in Language Atlas: which uses this subject.Sources1. Encyclopaedia Britannica (online academic reference)tier 2Encyclopaedia Britannica editors, Encyclopaedia Britannica, Inc., 2024View the Source2. Encyclopedia of Religiontier 1Mircea Eliade (ed.); Lindsay Jones (ed., 2nd ed.), Macmillan Reference, 2005View the SourceThe Oxford English Dictionary, 3rd editiontier 1Oxford University Press, Oxford University Pressdemonym / adjectival formView the SourceEncyclopedia of Hinduismtier 1Denise Cush, Catherine Robinson and Michael York (eds.), Routledge, 2008Originated Here: Shaktism, Stored origin-place property on this entity, cited to this source: The Indian subcontinent, with major centres in Bengal, Assam and the Tamil countryView the SourceGeoNames: GeoNames search for AssamGeoNamesModern Area: India, Search result for AssamQuote, Modern Area: India, Search result for Assam26.0 93.0 India , Assam first-order administrative divisionView the SourceComments (0)No comments yet. 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