01Bordowa and the first play
He was born at Alipukhuri near Bordowa in present Nagaon district, to a family of Bhuyan landholders, and lost both parents young. He studied at the tol of Mahendra Kandali. Around 1468 he staged Chihna Yatra, Assam’s first play, painting the seven Vaikunthas himself. Two long pilgrimages took him to Puri, Mathura, Vrindavan and Kashi. Back home he composed the Kirtan Ghosha, sung in every namghar, rendered much of the Bhagavata into Assamese, and set up sattras where monks and villagers sang the Name together.
02The Koch court and the woven Vrindavan
Opposition at the Ahom court drove him west to the Koch kingdom, where King Naranarayan and his brother Chilarai became his patrons. For them he had the weavers of Tantikuchi make the Vrindavani Vastra, a long cloth woven with the leelas of Krishna; pieces of it survive in the British Museum. He wrote the Ankiya Naat plays in Brajavali, staged as bhaona to this day in Majuli and across Assam. He died at Cooch Behar in 1568 and left the work to his disciple Madhavdev.
