Charaideo and the Ahom Moidams

01The shining city on the hill

Sukaphaa crossed the Patkai into the Brahmaputra valley in 1228 with a small band of followers, and after years of moving camp he settled on these low hills east of present Sivasagar around 1253. He named the place Che-rai-doi, which the Ahoms remember as the shining city on the hill. The capital later moved down to the plains, to Garhgaon and Rangpur, but Charaideo stayed the sacred home of the dynasty. Kings returned here for rites, and the Ahom chronicles, the Buranjis, treat it as the root of the kingdom.

02The moidams

When an Ahom king or queen died, the body was laid with goods for the next life in a brick or stone vault, and over it was raised a hemispherical mound of earth, crowned by a small pavilion called a chow chali and ringed by an octagonal wall. The biggest stand as tall as a three-storey house. In later centuries the Ahom royal family adopted Hindu rites and the cremated remains were placed in the moidams. Many were dug into for treasure over the centuries. The Archaeological Survey of India protects the Charaideo group, and in July 2024, at the World Heritage Committee’s session in New Delhi, the moidams were inscribed as India’s 43rd World Heritage Site.

The life of this place