Moidams of Assam — Burial Mounds of Ahom Nobility
Builder of Moidams was Tai-Ahom clan, migrated from China in 12th Century
India is a place of wide-ranging funerary architecture, but burial mounds can only be seen in the northeastern state of Assam. These mounds resemble the pyramids of Egypt in terms of rituals of entombing the dead.
Architecturally, a Moidam or Maidam of Assam is closer to the Native American burial mounds, royal tombs of ancient China, the Barrow of England, the Cairn of Scotland and the Tumulus of Europe. Moidams of Assam belonged to the royals of the medieval Ahom kingdom, who believed their kings were gods.
These vaulted chambers were often double-storied and had a centrally raised platform where the dead body was laid along with the personal items the deceased used during his lifetime. The historical chronicles inform that wives, attendants, pet animals and valuables were buried along with the departed kings.
Moidams are a hemispherical earthen mound with an open pavilion at its peak, called Chow-Chali. A layer of vegetation covers this mound. And an octagonal wall encloses the entire Moidam. These structures look like Native American burial mounds from outside.
The builders of Moidams were Tai Ahom, a clan that migrated from China. They established themselves in the #Brahmaputra river valley and ruled from the 12th to 18th centuries. Their first capital was at Patkai hills, Che-rai-doi or Charaideo (now in Sivasagar district).
Charaideo Moidams area is spread in hundreds of acres and can be divided into 3 major parts—the capital, the cemetery and the sacred religious site. Ahom capital is extinct now, but the cemetery remains are intact.
Moidams offer a beautiful burial landscape in Charaideo. It shows the funerary traditions of Ahoms, which ceased after its rulers converted to #Hinduism and Buddhism. Apart from Charaideo, other Moidams exist in the Jorhat and Dibrugarh districts of Assam.
With the shift of Ahom culture toward the south and east, the Moidams were built in parts of north Vietnam, Laos, Thailand, northern Myanmar, and southern China. However, the cluster of Moidams in Charaideo distinguishes itself in scale and concentration.
From the 13th to 17th centuries, Moidams were constructed using wood, whereas stone and burnt bricks were used in chambers from the 18th century onwards. The Changrung Phukan, or the canonical text of Ahoms, has a record of the material used in building Moidams. This text also documents the number of labourers, duration of work, and rituals. The bricks and stones cemented by the mixture of black pulses, molasses, duck eggs, fish, and lime were applied in chambers. Boulders, and broken stone slabs, were used for the superstructure.
Many of the Moidams were plundered under the Mughal general Mir Jumla in the 17th century, who had briefly occupied the Garhgaon area. Later, during the British East India Company rule and Raj period, burglars targeted these mounds for their valuables. Due to these attacks many of the relics are still missing.
One corpse bathing tank associated with Moidams has also been found in the Sivasagar district. This tank Sa-dhowa Pukhuri was used for the Moidam burials of Charaideo. Sa-dhowa means religious bathing of the dead.
Migrated from south western China's Yunnan province, Ahoms outlasted most other medieval Indian dynasties and reigned for nearly 600 years. These Moidams are the legacy of those Ahom rulers, who departed on their way to the afterlife with their prized possessions in a Pharaoh style.