Suyya Pandit - A Great Engineer
By Maharaj Krishen Raina
Avantivarman, the founder of
Utpala dynasty, came to power
in 855 AD and ruled Kashmir
for 28 years. His peaceful and
just reign was a period of consolidation,
when Kashmir rose once again to great
heights in the realms of philosophy,
letters, art and architecture. He is well
remembered for his
founding the city of
Avantipura, 17 kms.
from Srinagar on the
banks of river Jhelum,
which is still called by
the same name. During
his rule, he also
constructed the temple
dedicated to Shiva
Avanteshwara. The
ruins, adjacent to to
Jammu - Srinagar
highway are among the
most imposing
monuments of ancient
Kashmiri architecture,
ranking next only to the
Martand temple.
Kashmir was liable
to floods owing to which
it yielded little produce.
King Lalitaditya, who
ruled Kashmir during mid 8th century,had with great exertions, drained out
some water from the valley after which
it produced, to some extent, better
crops. During the weak rule of the later
Karkotas, the drainage operations had
been neglected, with the result that
floods were devastating the country as
frequently as ever. Avantivarman and
the people were in
veritable despair. The
king was very much
grieved because of the
famine and thought of
several plans for the
relief of the people. At
that time, it is said,
through the merits of
Avantivarman, there
descended to the earth
the Lord of Food
(Annapati) himself, in the
person of the illustrious
Suyya, to give fresh life to
the people.
The origin of Suyya
is not known. His birth is
woven in mystery. By his
acts, which were wonders
of the world, it became
certain that he had not
been born from a
woman’s womb. It is saidthat as a baby, he was
found in a covered
earthen pot on the
roadside, from where he
was picked up by a
Chandala woman named
Suyya while she was
sweeping the road. She got him
nourished in the house of a Sudra
woman, who named him after that of
his adopted mother. He grew up into an
intelligent youth and having obtained
some education, became a teacher of the
local boys. Possessed as he was of a
sharp intellect, there was always a
cluster of sensible men around him.
Suyya came to be known as a great
engineer of King Avantivarman’s court.Owing to the waterlogged condition of
Kashmir due to constant flooding,
cultivation had declined. Suyya found
that the recurrence of flood in the valley
was due to the waters of the Vitasta
which could not get with considerable
swiftness through the gorge, some three
miles below Baramulla as the
compressed passage got blocked with
boulders. He removed the rocks and
built some stone-walls to protect their
further sliding. He also constructed new
beds for the river. As a result of these
activities, thousands of acres of arable
land were reclaimed and hundreds of
new villages sprang up on these sites.
The great chronicler Kalhana reveals a
curious story about Suyya on this issue.
Whenever there was a talk of famine,
Suyya would say that he knew how to
banish this monster if he were provided
with the means. King Avantivarman
came to know of Suyya’s observationand summoned him to his presence.
Questioned as to what he was saying,
Suyya repeated the same words. He
would not explain his scheme and so
the courtiers declared him to be mad.
Yet the king wanted to test him and
placed his treasures at his disposal.
Suyya took many pots full of money in
a boat and started towards Madavarajya,
the southers district of the Valley. He
threw a pot of money at a village called
Nandaka (Nandi on the Vashau river)
which was submerged with flood water
and then hastily returned, going to
Yakshadar near Khadanyar below
Baramulla and threw handfuls of money
into the river. People were sure Suyya
was mad. The king however wished to
watch the result of his doing. The
famine-stricken people, who were
watching Suyya’s operations, at oncejumped into the river near Dyaragul and
in order to find the precious coins,
cleared the bed of rocks which had rolled
down into the river bed. This accelerated
the flow of water, which speedily drained
out. The submerged land re-appeared.
The pot full of money, which he had
dropped in deep water at Nandaka, came
into full view.
Kalhana’s topographical exactnessis strikingly revealed from his accounts
of the regulation of the waters of the
Vitasta by Suyya, which help us to trace
the original course of the river and the
changed course. Previously the Vitasta
and the Sindh met near Trigami, turning
a large area into a swamp. But Suyya
planned their confluence at Shadipur
and regulated the course of the Vitasta
in such a manner that it flowed right
through the Wular Lake. The course of
the tributaries was also regulated in a
similar manner. The water was
channelled for irrigation purposes and
each village was allotted as much water
as was necessary for its crops. Suyya
had many villages reclaimed from
marshy tracts by having circular
embankments raised all round them to
Suyya Pandit keep out water, so that they looked like
round bowls and hence were named
Kundala. Some villages, for instance
Utsa Kundal, Mara Kundal etc. retain
this designation even to this day.
However, the irrigation operations of
Suyya, removing the junction of the river
Vitasta and Sindhu from Parihaspura
to Shadipur, resulted in Parihaspura
losing most of its importance. It is said
that he built a temple of Hrashikesha
Yogasayin at the new confluence.
Suyya supplemented these
measures by an equally important step
of improving the irrigation system,
which was indispensable for the
cultivation of the staple food of Kashmir.
In the words of Kalhana, after examining
the different classes of land, he procured
a supply of river water for the villages,
which thus were no longer dependant
only on rainfall. After watching all village
lands, he took from each village some
soil, and ascertained, by observing the
time it took to dry up, the period within
which irrigation would be required for
each soil, respectively. He then arranged
accordingly on a permanent basis for the
size and distribution of the water-course
for each village, and by using various
streams for the irrigation, and thereby
embellished all regions with an
abundance of irrigated fields which were
distinguished for excellent produce.
The town Sopore (then Suyyapura),
which Suyya built on the banks of the
Jhelum river, commemorates his name.
He prohibited killing of fish and waterfowl
in the Wular lake. He granted the
village Suyyakundala to the Brahmins
in honour of his mother Suyya and
constructed the bund Suyya-setu after
her name.(Main Source: Kalhana's Rajatarangini)
Source: Milchar
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