The Dihing or Burhi Dihing is a large tributary, about long, of the Brahmaputra River in Upper Assam in northeastern India. The river originates at above sea level in the Eastern Himalayas (the Patkai Hills) in Arunachal Pradesh and flows through Tinsukia and Dibrugarh Districts in Assam to its confluence with the Brahmaputra at Dihingmukh. Its watershed covers about . The Dihing has created a number of oxbow lakes in the area.
Namdapha River is a tributary of the Dihing on its northern bank. Disang River is a tributary of the Dihing in its southern bank. The Jeypore-Dihing Rainforest, Namdapha National Park, numerous petroleum fields, wet-paddy fields, bamboo orchards and tea gardens provide a unique landscape along its course. Ledo, Margherita, Digboi, Duliajan and Naharkatia (Nahorkotiya) are the small towns in its valley. Dihing is one of the largest contributors to the Brahmaputra River. The plains of the Dihing Valley has a rich variety of flora and fauna. The Betel nuts are produced most in the areas of the Dihing Plains.
Etymology The name Dihing is of Tibeto-Burman Bodo-Kachari origin. The element di- means "water" or "river", a hydronymic prefix found in numerous river names of northeastern India.
In the Ahom language, the river was known as Nam Jin (or Nam-jin). J. N. Phukan's Ahom grammar lists Nam Jin as the Ahom name of the Burhi Dihing, while Nityananda Gogoi glosses the name as "the cold water or river", denoting the Dihing River.
History Historical mentions Buranjis describe the Dihing River as the border between the Chutia kingdom in the north and the Ahom kingdom in the south.Assam Buranji (SM), p. 9 The Dihingmukh region consequently became an important theatre of the Ahom–Chutia conflicts. After the victory over the Chutias in the 1513 Dikhou-Majuli war, the Ahoms encamped at the Dihing.Satsari Assam Buranji, p.57Goswami, Hemchandra, Purani Assam Buranji, p.40 In 1520, Chutia forces attacked the Ahom fort of Mungkhrang at the mouth of the Dihing, killed its commander Khenmung and recovered the position; fighting returned to Dihingmukh in late 1522, when Ahom forces attacked the Chutia positions there and pushed them eastwards.Bhuyan, S. K., Satsari Assam Buranji, p. 57.Bhuyan, S. K., Deodhai Assam Buranji, p. 17. Buranji accounts also name Manik Chandra Barua, a high Chutia official, in connection with the frontier dispute on the Dihing over fishing rights that preceded the hostilities.Assam Buranji (SM), pp. 9–10.
Following the conquest of the Chutia kingdom, the Dihing valley became an important administrative region of the expanding Ahom state. In 1525, Suhungmung proceeded in person to the Dihing country and appointed officers to administer the frontier provinces of Habung, Dihing and Banlung. The Dihing province, known in the Ahom chronicles as Mungklang, was placed under a Dihingia Gohain or Thaomung Mungklang; Nityananda Gogoi records Kheokhen Banlungia Gohain as an early holder of the office. Suhungmung himself was known as the Dihingia Raja after establishing his capital at Bakata on the Dihing and constructing an embankment there against floods. His establishment of princes of the royal family in different territorial estates subsequently gave rise to several royal houses, including the Dihingia branch.
The Dihing continued to figure in military events during the later sixteenth century. During the Koch invasion of 1563, the forces of Chilarai made their camp at Majuli before advancing into the Ahom heartland and Garhgaon; Mechagarh is likewise associated with Chilarai's encampment during this campaign, while accounts also record a Koch attack on the Ahom fort at Dihing. In 1565, Chutia forces again raided Namrup and Kheram and defeated the Tipam Raja, who was forced to retreat across a river identified in the Deodhai Assam Buranji as the Dihing. Under the later Ahom administration the Dihing region was divided between officers styled the Pani Dihingia Rajkhowa and Tarua Dihingia Rajkhowa, indicating the continuing administrative identity of the Dihing tract.
Historical course Historical and geomorphological sources indicate that the Dihing formerly continued much farther west across Upper Assam than it does at present. Richard Wilcox, writing from surveys carried out in 1825–1828, recorded that the former Dihing received the Disang, Dikhu, Jaji and Disai rivers before discharging into the Brahmaputra near a place called Mahura. Edward Gait identified Lakhau as the Dihing–Brahmaputra confluence during Mir Jumla's invasion of Assam in 1662. According to his reconstruction, the Brahmaputra or Luit then flowed north of Majuli, while the Dihing followed approximately the channel now occupied by the Brahmaputra south of the island, received the Disang and Dikhu, and reunited with the northern stream at the western extremity of Majuli.
John Peter Wade's geographical account, compiled from information obtained in the late eighteenth century, gives a more detailed description of this former confluence. Wade stated that the Dihing turned westward and joined the Luit opposite a place called Zoontiaran, about forty miles upstream of Kaliabor, with Poolarghaut on the southern bank and Phogaderagaon on the northern bank near the junction. In his description of Majuli, Wade similarly placed the reunion of the Dihing and Luit above Kaliabor and opposite Banfangh, and identified Roopei-Chapoori as the western extremity of Majuli at the point where the two streams reunited.
The location of Lakhau is also indicated by accounts of Mir Jumla's advance into Upper Assam. In a historical-geographical study of the campaign, I. S. Mumtaza notes that the tract between Kaliabar and Lakhau was the forested and swampy tract in which the present Kaziranga wildlife reserve is situated.
Satellite imagery examined by J. N. Sarma revealed palaeochannels of a larger ancestral river, which he termed the Proto-Burhi Dihing. Its upstream palaeochannel lay mainly north of the present river and crossed it near Naharkatia, while the downstream palaeochannels continued westward south of the present Burhi Dihing, through the tract between the Burhi Dihing and the Disang river. Beyond Tingkhong, these abandoned channels formed northern and southern groups that converged near Sepon; Sarma interpreted their distribution as evidence that the downstream channel progressively migrated northward towards the present course of the Burhi Dihing.
Geomorphological reconstructions of the Majuli region similarly place the former lower Dihing along the southern side of the old Majuli tract. Sarma and Phukan reconstructed the earlier Brahmaputra or Luit as flowing north of Majuli and the Dihing to its south, the two meeting at Lakhu. A later reconstruction by Mahanta et al. (2024), based on the same model, depicts the pre-reorganisation Dihing following approximately the present Brahmaputra channel south of Majuli before meeting the northern Brahmaputra–Luit at Lakhu.
Wade's geographical sketch of Assam, compiled in 1800, described Majuli as formed by the Dihing on the south and the Luit on the north, with channels connecting the two rivers across the island. In the same account, Wade described Assam as separated by the Brahmaputra into three principal geographical divisions—Uttarkol or Uttarpar, Dakhinkol or Dakhinpar, and Majuli—and noted that the first two designations had formerly been applied specifically to Upper Assam. Edward Gait noted that references to the Dihing in accounts of the late eighteenth century denoted the river channel south of Majuli, corresponding to the course of the Brahmaputra south of the island in his own time. He cautioned that the continued use of the name did not necessarily prove that the Brahmaputra's principal channel still flowed north of Majuli during the events described. Gait further observed that the southern channel was still known as the Dihing when the map accompanying Horace Hayman Wilson's 1852 Narrative of the Burmese War in 1824–26 was prepared. He also recorded an Assamese tradition attributing the change in the Brahmaputra's course to a flood brought down by the Dibang River in 1735, while noting that the northern channel continued to carry a considerable volume of water afterward.
According to Sarma(2007), about 250 years ago, the Dihing flowed westward through Sibsagar district and met the Brahmaputra at the extreme western end of Majuli, nearly 200 km west of its present outfall. Major changes in the Brahmaputra–Dihing system subsequently transferred the principal Brahmaputra flow to the channel south of Majuli. Gait recorded an Assamese tradition attributing a major change to a flood brought down by the Dibang in 1735, while later geomorphological studies have associated the major channel reorganisation with flooding around 1750. Gait also recorded a native tradition that at a still earlier period the Dikhu followed an independent course as far as Kajalimukh, portions of which were believed to survive as the Tuni channel in Majuli and the Kolong in Nagaon.
The river's former course is also reflected in historical references to settlements and royal centres along its banks. Buranji narratives associate Namrup, Tipam and Salguri as successive settlements of Ahoms along the river. Another passage states that Athabari received its name after eight atha trees were planted along the Dihing during the reign of Sukhaamphaa (r. 1552–1603). During the later development of the Ahom kingdom, Sudangphaa established his capital at Charagua near the Dihing, while Suhungmung made Bakata his capital on the river and constructed an embankment to protect the settlement from floods. Although several of these places are no longer situated beside the present Burhi Dihing, their historical association with the river reflects its older westward course through Upper Assam.Sarma, Jogendranath, Change of River Channel and Bank Erosion of the Burhi Dihing River (Assam), Assessed Using Remote Sensing Data and GIS, p. 95.
Bridges and crossings
Rail bridge of chain age 41.480 kilometers situated at Kutuha Kachari Village of length 288.20 meter and width 6.30 meters. RCC bridge of chain age 41.610 kilometers situated at Kutuha Kachari Village of length 236.30 meter and width 8.18 meters. Rail bridge of chain age 54.586 kilometers situated at Kowar Kharoni Village of length 504.20 meter and width 8.50 meters. Steel bridge of chain age 102.625 kilometers situated at Cheerika Beel Village of length 616.6 meter and width 3.13 meters. RCC bridge of chain age 108.730 kilometers situated at Kowar Kharoni Village of length 273.93 meter and width 8.25 meters. Rail bridge of chain age 109.136 kilometers situated at Kowar Kharoni Village of length 339.30 meter and width 5.89 meters.
References
External links Riversofindia.com Dihing River