ABSTRACT
The invasion that caused the temple's destruction was one of a series that menaced Guwāhāti and Assam from the thirteenth through the seventeenth centuries, although with no lasting success. The Assamese acquired the reputation of being warlike and predatory, accustomed to sailing down the Brahmaputra in fleets of canoes to raid the rich districts of the delta before retiring to the forests and swamps. In 1638 they pillaged the countryside around Dacca (Dhākā), and their territory was ravaged in return by the governor of Bengal. The king of Assam, Jayadhwaj Singh, renewed his raids on the delta during the civil wars between the sons of Mughal Emperor Shāh Jahān in the late 1650s. 'Ālamgīr (Aurangzeb), who emerged victorious in the civil wars and became Mughal emperor in 1658, was determined to avenge the repeated attacks. He sent an invading force of 12,000 cavalry, 30,000
foot soldiers, and several hundred armed vessels into Assam in 1661. His general, Mīr Jumla, to whom 'Ālamgīr owed much of his earlier success in defeating his brother Shujā, was incensed by a raid on Guwāhāti by the Ahoms, who captured twenty of his guns there; Guwāhāti had come under Mughal control in the 1630s and would change hands frequently thereafter. Mīr Jumla's army, considering the conflict with the Assamese a holy war (the Mughals were Muslims), retook Guwāhāti, as well as Garghaon, which yielded considerable military supplies and treasure, and Kathalbari, the capital of neighboring Kuch Bihār. Mīr Jumla defeated the rāja and obtained the submission of most of the tribal chieftains, but was driven back by the heavy rains and the Ahoms' interrup tion of his supply routes. Famine, disease, and desertions decimated his army.
