- Lived:
- 1449 by the hagiographic tradition, c. 1479–84 by some modern scholarship — died 1568 at Bheladonga in Koch Behar (Cooch Behar); born at Alipukhuri near Bordowa in Nagaon, and the life ran the length of the Brahmaputra — Bordowa, Majuli, Barpeta, the Koch court
- Field:
- Vaiṣṇava saint, founder of the eka-śaraṇa-hari-nāma dharma — and poet, playwright, composer, choreographer, painter and prose pioneer, the founder-figure of Assamese culture
- The Big Idea:
- One man gave Assam a religion with a book instead of an idol on the altar and its door open to tribal peoples and Muslims — then built, almost single-handedly, the literature, theatre, music, dance and painting to carry it.
- In their words:
- "Kirāta and Kachāri, Khāsi and Gāro and Miri, Yavana and Kaṅka and cowherd — taking refuge in Krishna's name, even they become pure." (from his Assamese Bhāgavata; the rendering is ours)
- If you remember one thing:
- In the 1500s, when most of India would not share a meal across caste lines, a saint on the Brahmaputra initiated a Gāro farmer, a Miri attendant, a Jaintia tax-collector and a Muslim craftsman into one congregation — and every Assamese village still keeps the prayer-hall he designed for them to sit in together.