Unakoti
Interesting facts
- Just below the giant Shiva head sits a rare four-armed seated Ganesha, flanked by two standing Ganeshas, one carved with three tusks and the other with four.
- A spring tumbling down the hill terraces fills a rock pool called Sita Kunda, and bathing in it is considered sacred, especially during the April fair.
- The cast of carved deities goes well beyond Shiva, with images identified as Narasimha, Rama, Ravana and Hanuman among the rocks.
- One figure shows the river goddess Ganga riding a makara, the mythical sea creature that serves as her mount in Hindu art.
- A three-eyed figure among the carvings has been read by some as the sun god Surya and by others as Vishnu.
- Several four-faced Shiva lingas, known as chaturmukha lingas, stand among the free-standing stone images scattered around the site.
- Its scale and remoteness have earned Unakoti the popular nickname of the Angkor Wat of the North-East in the Indian press.
- Besides the big April pilgrimage, a second, smaller festival is held at the site every January.
Why it is worth it
In the hills of northern Tripura, near the border with Bangladesh, the gods are carved straight into the rock. At Unakoti a cliff face and the boulders around it are covered with reliefs and stone images, the largest of them a head of Shiva known as Unakotiswara Kal Bhairava, about 30 feet (9 metres) high including a headdress that alone measures some 10 feet. Beside the headdress stand two full-length female figures, one of them Durga on her lion, and nearby are colossal images of Ganesha and three huge figures of the bull Nandi, half sunk in the ground.
On stylistic grounds the reliefs are dated to roughly the 7th to 9th centuries, before the rule of the Manikya kings of Tripura, and their patronage has been linked to the Deva dynasty of the wider Bengal region. The site is sacred to Shiva, and the only inscription here, in Bengali characters of the 11th–12th century, mentions a man named Sri Jayadeva, probably a pilgrim. Besides the rock-cut reliefs there are many free-standing stone images. Centuries of neglect have damaged much of the art; the Archaeological Survey of India now protects the site, and in December 2022 it was added to UNESCO's tentative list for World Heritage status.
The name means "one less than a crore", that is, one short of ten million, and legends explain it. In one, Shiva stopped here for a night on his way to Kashi with ten million gods and goddesses in his train, ordered them all to rise before dawn, and, finding only himself awake, turned the sleepers to stone. Local tribal tradition credits the carvings to Kallu, a devotee of Parvati who wished to follow Shiva and Parvati to Mount Kailash; Shiva agreed on condition that he make ten million images in one night, and when dawn came with the count one short, Kallu was left behind with his work. In the local Kokborok language the place is called Subrai Khung. Every April a large pilgrimage fair, the Ashokastami Mela, gathers thousands of devotees at the site.
Getting there
Unakoti lies about 8 km east of Kailashahar, the headquarters of Unakoti district. The nearest railway station is Dharmanagar, about 20 km away. The nearest airport within India with regular service is Agartala's Maharaja Bir Bikram Airport (IXA), about 178 km by road; Silchar (IXS) in Assam is about 148 km away.
On these lists
From the encyclopaedia
Unakoti or Subrai Khung is a sculptural emblem and ancient Shaivite place that hosts rock carvings, figures and images of gods and goddesses. The bas relief sculptures at Unakoti are on stylistic grounds ascribed to 7th–9th century CE, to the period of Pre-Manikya rule. The rock art was patronised by Deva Dynasty of Sribhumi in Samatata. The only inscription at Unakoti is on the other Chaturmukhalinga image, consisting of a couple of records in Bengali Characters of the 11th to 12th century CE, which mentions one Sri Jayadeva, probably a pilgrim.
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