Bhaskar Jyoti Gogoi
Ph.D Research Scholar, English & Foreign Language University, Shillong Campus, Meghalaya. bhaskargogoi@hotmail.co.in
Volume 12, Number 3, 2020 I Full Text PDF
DOI: 10.21659/rupkatha.v12n3.15
Abstract
In the context of Assam, travel writing is an area which offers immense possibilities. Particularly, the pre-colonial period of Assam contains various neglected travelogues like the anonymous Loss of Ter Schelling (1682), Bartholomew Plaisted’s Journals (1767), James Renell’s Bengal Atlas (1779) and his Journals (1764-67) as well as John Peter Wade’s An Account of Assam (1800). These travelogues not only are precious testimonials to the political, social and economic demographics of the period but also offer valuable insight into early Anglo-Assamese relations. Even travel narratives written in the vernacular provide critical insights about various ethnic communities residing in Northeast India. The improvement of communication networks in the seventeenth century, like trade routes and river passageways, facilitated the greater movement of travellers to and from the Northeast in various garbs like that of the explorers, invaders, missionaries etc. A pioneer amongst travel texts in Assamese is Tripura Buranji (1724), written jointly by Ratna Kandali Sarma and Arjundas Bairagi, the two Assamese envoys of King Rudra Simha (1696-1714) who were sent to the court of Ratnamanikya, the King of Tripura in 1714 to seek assistance for the proposed invasion of Bengal. Owing to this event, there were various correspondences and envoys being sent to and fro from the Ahom court to the King of Tripura. The two envoys mentioned here undertook the journey to Tripura on foot accompanied by escorts through Cachar and the foothills of Lushai Hills (present day Mizoram) to the capital of Ratnamanikya. The most striking fact about the travelogue is that its authors supplemented their account of the diplomatic missions, either on their own accord or on the instructions of their Government, by their observations on the resources, topography, customs and history of the country which they visited and of the territories which they had passed. Such a compilation was expected to extend the bounds of knowledge of their countrymen and facilitate the prosecution of similar missions in future. It also marks the importance of the realization of such archiving and documentation of travel as early as the eighteenth century. This paper offers introspection into this medieval narrative and presents a comparative viewpoint with Bartholomew Plaisted’s Journals (1767), written around the same time period. This would offer us a comparative viewpoint vis-à-vis the insider and the outsider’s narration of/about the Northeast.
Keywords: Assamese travel, eighteenth century, Tripura, diplomatic mission
