Sadiya Serpent Pillar

Sadiya Serpent pillar, is a medieval octagonal stone pillar that was erected in the region of historical Chutia kingdom in present-day Sadiya in Assam, India. It contains the earliest example of Ahom script and the pillar is inscribed with the Ahom equivalent year of 1532 CE.

Description and Location
As per the Assam Gazetteer (1928), the pillar was found between the Dibang and Deopani rivers, on the eastern side close to the seventh milepost of the road from Sadiya to Nizamghat. There was a stone bridge located nearby to the pillar and a road led from this bridge to a brick tank in the vicinity. The British explorer S. F Hannay found a brick gateway, stone bridge and a brick tank in the same region (between the Dibang and Deopani rivers), but fortified by tall ramparts.

The stone pillar contains one of the earliest Ahom inscription founded to date inscribed in it, dated to 1532. The inscription dates to the reign of Suhungmung Dihingia Raja (1497–1539). Ahoms who captured Sadiya in 1523 and entered into a treaty with the local Mishmi tribe, the terms of the treaty were inscribed on an eleven feet high stone pillar, constructed in a design of a huge serpent encircling it from bottom to top. The epigraph consisting 9 and a half lines on the pillar is a proclamation issued by Phrasenmung Borgohain (Ahom governor of Sadiya) asking the Mishimis to pay annual tribute in certain articles and to dwell on one side of the Dibang River.

The snake pillar shares similarity with the octagonal stone snake pillars symbols found in the Tamreswari Temple of Sadiya.

Present
It was removed from its original site in 1953, and placed in Assam State Museum and since then has been in display there.