Srihatta : The Kashi of the NorthEast That Disappeared: Epigraphy,Scared space and Dharmic Transformation in NorthEast Bengal

Srihatta – The Kashi of the Northeast That Disappeared is a critical historical study of a region once central to the political, sacred, and intellectual life of eastern India but later erased from dominant historiography. Identified in early inscriptions as Śrīhaṭṭa-maṇḍala, the region corresponding to present-day Surma–Barak valley functioned as an administrative unit, sacred landscape, and transregional connective zone until the fifteenth century CE.
The book argues that Srihatta did not disappear due to demographic decline or environmental collapse. Rather, its disappearance was historiographical produced through political transition, the collapse of Sanskritic patronage, reorganisation of sacred geography, and shifts in institutional legitimacy during the Sultanate period. Drawing primarily on epigraphic evidence, sacred geography, śloka traditions, and the study of historical silence, the work reconstructs Srihatta’s lost civilisational identity.
Rejecting both nostalgic revivalism and reductionist explanations, the book treats dharmic transformation and Islamisation as historically situated processes shaped by power, patronage, and spatial reconfiguration. It critically examines how colonial and postcolonial historiography prioritised certain regions while marginalising connective borderlands like Srihatta.
By integrating epigraphy, ritual economy, Tantric and Śaiva-Śākta traditions, and memory studies, this work offers a methodological model for writing regional history beyond centre–periphery frameworks. Srihatta – The Kashi of the Northeast That Disappeared contributes not only to the history of Northeast Bengal but also to broader debates on how regions are remembered, forgotten, and recovered in South Asian historiography.