Ita Fort in Itanagar town is an important historical site in the state of Arunachal Pradesh, India. The name literally means "Fort of Bricks" (brick being called "Ita" in the Assamese language). It also lends its name to the city Itanagar, the capital of Arunachal Pradesh. The Ita Fort, dated to the 14th-15th century, is generally believed to have been built by the Chutia kings, who ruled the region during that period. The fort can be tentatively associated with the line of hill forts attributed to the Chutia king Gauri Narayan. According to the Chutia chronicles, Gauri Narayan, after consolidating his kingdom, “built a line of forts along the foot of the hills”, along with large tanks and temples. The total brickwork is 16,200 cubic metres. Archaeological findings from the site are displayed at the Jawaharlal Nehru Museum, Itanagar.
History The bricks used in the fort indicate its construction in the 14th–15th century. Historian Nityananda Gogoi opines that the Itanagar area was part of the Chutia kingdom at its wider extent. According to Gogoi, under some of its rulers, the kingdom included parts of the hilly region of present-day Arunachal Pradesh, including Itanagar, together with adjoining territories of the Brahmaputra valley extending westward as far as the Bargang River near Biswanath. He cited similar marks on stones from archaeological remains at Sadiya, the Buroi River, and Naxapahar near the confluence of the Bargang and Dikal rivers as supporting this reconstruction. Gogoi further concluded from the fourteenth- and fifteenth-century inscriptions of the Chutia rulers that the dynasty centred at Sadiya or Sadhayapur ruled an "extensive country" comprising parts of Upper Assam and Arunachal Pradesh.
Ita Fort can also tentatively be associated with the line of hill forts attributed to the Chutia king Gauri Narayan. According to the Chutia chronicles, Gauri Narayan, after consolidating his kingdom, “built a line of forts along the foot of the hills”, along with large tanks and temples. The ruins of a hill fort on the banks of the Buroi River bear the same builder's marks as the ones found in the boundary wall of the Tamreswari Temple near Sadiya, built by Chutia king Muktadharmanarayana in 1442 CE, which indicates that the Chutia fortifications were spread to Biswanath.K.L. Barua, An Early History of Kamrupa, 1933, p. 271. The location of Ita Fort, well to the east of Buroi, indicates that the Ita Fort was also one of such hill forts of the Chutia kingdom."Though the geographical extent of these rulers' power is not yet known in detail, according to Neog, the present-day North Lakhimpur district of Assam, which covers the find sites of most inscriptions, perhaps formed a part of their political dominion. If architectural continuity is admitted between the fortifications in the Sadiya region and the Burai river ruin site, it would be possible to believe that the kingdom of these rulers extended as far as the outer limit of Darrang district, in the westernmost extent of which Ahom conquerors settled the vanquished Chutiyas in the early part of the sixteenth century." The plains south and southeast of Ita Fort, in the Subansiri–Brahmaputra valley, including present-day Lakhimpur district and Biswanath district,"If architectural continuity is admitted between the fortifications in the Sadiya region and the Burai river ruin site, it would be possible to believe that the kingdom of these rulers(Chutia) extended as far as the outer limit of Darrang district, in the western most extent of which Ahom conquerors settled the vanquished Chutias in the early part of the sixteenth century." as well as the historical Habung region, formed part of the Chutia dominion during the 14th and 15th centuries, as evidenced by land grants issued by Chutia kings in the region.
Affinities with other Chutia Kingdom sites Although no inscription at Ita Fort has yet been discovered naming its builders, the fort has often been associated with the Chutia-period architectural tradition of the Assam–Arunachal foothills. The monument is generally dated to the 14th–15th centuries CE, a period corresponding with the later phase of the Chutia kingdom, and is widely believed to have been constructed by the Chutia kings who ruled the region during this time.
Architecturally, Ita Fort shows several features comparable to medieval sites traditionally associated with the Chutia kingdom. The fort is built with a stone masonry base and brick superstructure,Eastern gate, the highest point of the fort, is heavily damaged one. Built on stone masonry, this gate overlooks Doimukh in the Dikrong valley." a construction technique also observed in the enclosure walls of the Tamreswari Temple complex, Rukmininagar, and a brick tank found within a large medieval fortification in the Sadiya region. Similar to the sites of Sadiya region, the brick ramparts of Ita fort were also laid with mud mortar, without any lime mortar or similar binding material with iron clamps and nails in certain places. The use of brickwork on such a scale also links Ita Fort with the wider Chutia-period architectural complex. This emphasis on brick construction is comparable to the fortified and religious sites of the Sadiya region, where brick walls, gateways, plinths, tanks and structural remains form a prominent part of the archaeological record. The gateway plan of Ita Fort also appears comparable to Bhismaknagar, Rukmininagar and Chapakhowa Rajgarh, as all these sites seem to use projecting and returning brick wall-segments to create a staggered or offset entrance passage rather than a simple straight opening through the rampart.
Additional parallels are found in sculptural motifs. A stone door-jamb fragment from Ita Fort depicts a lion and an elephant, while Chutia bricks discovered at Rukmininagar bear paired lion and elephant motifs. Lion imagery seen on a base relief closely matches that found in Chutia-period remains at Bhismaknagar, Tamreswari Temple and Rukmininagar, suggesting a shared symbolic and artistic vocabulary across these sites.
The location of Ita Fort is also significant. Earlier scholars noted that the ruins of a hill fort on the Buroi river (Buroi fortifications) contained masons' marks similar to those found in the ruins near Sadiya, which were associated with Bhismak and the Chutia rulers."A large number of these stones were found to contain marks, cut deeply into the sandstone... identical marks were found also in the marked stones found by Hannay in the fort near Sadiya assigned to Bhismak. It is therefore evident that the ruins near Sadiya and those on the banks of the Burai river can be assigned to the same period...The dynasty is evidently the line of Chutia kings who assumed the surname Pala." Later historians have argued that if architectural continuity is admitted between the fortifications of the Sadiya region and sites further west such as the Buroi ruins, it may indicate a broader Chutia cultural or political sphere extending across the northern bank of the Brahmaputra."Though the geographical extent of these rulers' power is not yet known in detail, according to Neog, the present-day North Lakhimpur district of Assam, which covers the find sites of most inscriptions, perhaps formed a part of their political dominion. If architectural continuity is admitted between the fortifications in the Sadiya region and the Burai river ruin site, it would be possible to believe that the kingdom of these rulers extended as far as the outer limit of Darrang district, to the westernmost extent of which Ahom conquerors settled the vanquished Chutiyas in the early part of the sixteenth century." Since Ita Fort lies to the east of the Buroi site and within the same foothill zone, it has been interpreted as part of this broader chain of Chutia-associated hill forts.
Taken together, the fort's chronology, brick-and-stone construction, sculptural motifs and geographical position in the Assam–Arunachal foothill zone suggest that Ita Fort belonged to the same architectural tradition as the Chutia-period monuments of Sadiya, Rukmininagar, Bhismaknagar, Tamreswari and related sites.
Historical Claims and Interpretations
In 1941, D. N. Das, Political Officer of the former Balipara Frontier Tract, claimed in an article published in the Journal of the Assam Research Society that Ita Fort may have been the capital of a legendary ruler identified as Ramachandra or Mayamatta, referred to as Mayapur.
This claim has, however, been questioned by later historians. N. N. Osik, after examining the different traditions cited in support of Raikar's interpretation, described the accounts concerning Ramachandra and Arimatta as mutually confusing and considered the attribution of Ita Fort to Ramachandra untenable. The Assamese chronicle Adi Charita, dated to 1586 Saka (1664 CE)"It is supposed to have been written in 1586 saka (1664 AD)", which is the source of the Ramachandra-Arimatta legend—though itself considered dubiousMaheswar Neog states that the Adi-charita, ascribed to Madhavadeva, has created much ill feeling among the Vaisnavas of Assam, and has been denounced by the more considerate section of sattra pontiffs and literary men alike.—states that Ramachandra's capital was located at Pratappura, from which he derived the epithet Pratappuriya. Some scholars have identified this Pratappura with a site near Biswanath,Journal of Asiatic Society of Bengal, p.190-191, Pratappura, capital city of Ramachandra was located near Biswanath, in the vicinity of Agnigarh. and the Uma-tumani rock inscription near Biswanath, which refers to a ruler as Pratapapuradhikari, has been cited in support of this identification.The Uma-tumani Rock inscription has the word Pratapapuradhikari indicating Pratappura to be located nearby. Another source, however, identifies the Pratappura of the legend with a king of Ratnapura in Ratnapitha.Neog, Maheswar, "Early History of the Vaiṣṇava Faith and Movement in Assam: Śaṅkaradeva and His Times, pp.51-52 Since Ratnapitha is generally understood as the tract between the Karatoya and Sankosh rivers, corresponding broadly to the historical Kamatapur region, this identification would place the tradition much farther west than Biswanath. Legendary accounts preserved in the Kamrupar Buranji likewise place the Ramachandra–Arimatta cycle in a wider Kamarupa setting. It describes Ramachandra as a king of Kamrupa, Phengua as the king of Kamatapura and associates places including Nilachal, Vaidyagarh and Pratappura with the tradition. Other traditions associated with Ramachandra's son, Arimatta (also identified as Sasanka), place his domain in present-day Kamrup, Darrang and Sonitpur districts with capital at Baidargarh (Betna) and attribute to him the conquest of the Kamata Kingdom. Scholars like Dimbeswar Neog and Edward Gait have considered the historicity of the Adi Charita doubtful, stating that its accounts appeared to be based mainly on legends and popular traditions, and described Arimatta as “at best, a legendary figure.” Neog further noted that “the Arimatta legends are so hopelessly divergent” that attempts to reconcile them would be futile, pointing to contradictory traditions concerning Arimatta's descendants and family.
This assessment is consistent with the wider literary traditions, which variously place Ramachandra or Arimatta in Pratappura, Ratnapura, Kamata, Kamrup or Darrang rather than securely locating their polity at Itanagar. Their historicity and chronology remain uncertain, since neither figure is securely attested in contemporary sources, while the surviving accounts are late, mutually divergent, and heavily legendary. Osik concluded that the divergent accounts concerning the two figures could not be satisfactorily reconciled and rejected Ramachandra's identification as the builder of Ita Fort.
Architecture