\ Located in Hojai District of Assam, Lanka is a town and a town area committee with 11 wards. It serves as a trade and commerce hub for nearby areas such as ''Udali, Nokhuti, Laskar Pather, Karikhana, Kheroni, Dablong'', and ''Doiyong'' sides. It is connected to other cities/states such as

Guwahati Guwahati (, ; formerly rendered Gauhati, ) is the biggest city of the Indian state of Assam and also the largest metropolis in northeastern India. Dispur, the capital of Assam, is in the circuit city region located within Guwahati and is the ...

by NH27.

Etymology

The name Lanka was likely named after Lanka of Ramayana; famous Assamese poet

Madhava Kandali Kaviraja Madhava Kandali ( as, মাধৱ কন্দলি) (circa. 14th century) was an Indian poet from the state of Assam. He is one of the renowned poets pertaining to the Pre- Shankara era. His Saptakanda Ramayana is considered the earl ...

was said to be an inhabitant of Lanka, who wrote the Saptakanda Ramayana, under the patronage of Varāha-Rājā Mahamanikya.

Geography

Lanka town of

Hojai District Hojai District is a district in Assam, India. It was formed on 15 August 2015. The headquarters of the district is situated at Sankardev Nagar, which is about 8 km away from Hojai town. Hojai District was formed from three tehsils of Naga ...

Assam Assam (; ) is a state in northeastern India, south of the eastern Himalayas along the Brahmaputra and Barak River valleys. Assam covers an area of . The state is bordered by Bhutan and Arunachal Pradesh to the north; Nagaland and Manipur ...

is located about 11 km from the district headquarters Sankar Dev Nagar. It is a rain-shadow region because of its unique location between the

West Jaintia Hills West Jaintia Hills (Pron: ˈʤeɪnˌtɪə) is an administrative District in the state of Meghalaya in India. The united district (Jaintia Hills District) was created on 22 February 1972 and occupied an area of 3819 km2. It had a population ...

to the west and

Mikir Hills Mikir Hills are a group of hills located to the south of the Kaziranga National Park, Assam. The easternmost Meghalaya comprising the detached Mikir Hills is partly isolated being surrounded by three sidesKarbi plateauor Mikir Hills is known ol ...

to the east.

Demographics

As of the 2001 India

census A census is the procedure of systematically acquiring, recording and calculating information about the members of a given population. This term is used mostly in connection with national population and housing censuses; other common censuses in ...

, Lanka is a Municipal Board having 11 Wards, with a population of 36,805. Males constitute 52% of the population and females constitute 48%. Lanka has an average literacy rate of 86.85%, higher than the national average of 72.19%: male literacy is 91.20%, and female literacy is 82.28%.

Language

Lanka town has a population of 36,805 as of the 2011 census.

Bengalis Bengalis (singular Bengali bn, বাঙ্গালী/বাঙালি ), also rendered as Bangalee or the Bengali people, are an Indo-Aryan ethnolinguistic group originating from and culturally affiliated with the Bengal region of S ...

form the majority of the town's population, having Bengali speakers at 30,051 constituting the overwhelming majority, while Assamese speakers are 2,918 as the second-largest minority in the circle, Hindi is spoken by 2,408 people, while other languages constitute 3.9% of the population.https://censusindia.gov.in/2011census/C-16T/DDW-C16-TOWN-STMT-MDDS-1800.XLSX

Connectivity

Lanka town is connected by the erstwhile National Highway 54 connecting nearby Dabaka (25 km) with

Silchar Silchar is a city and the headquarters of the Cachar district of the state of Assam, India. It is located south east of Guwahati. It was founded by Captain Thomas Fisher in 1832 when he shifted the headquarters of Cachar to Janiganj in Silchar. ...

(305 km). This highway is now numbered as NH-27, an east-west corridor connecting Porbander in

Gujarat Gujarat (, ) is a state along the western coast of India. Its coastline of about is the longest in the country, most of which lies on the Kathiawar peninsula. Gujarat is the fifth-largest Indian state by area, covering some ; and the nin ...

. The highway is being developed as a four-lane highway by the

National Highways Authority of India The National Highways Authority of India or NHAI (Hindi: भारतीय राष्ट्रीय राजमार्ग प्राधिकरण) is an autonomous agency of the Government of India, set up in 1995 (Act 1988) and i ...

. Lanka is also served by a railway line which

- Lumding BG line connecting to all parts of

and also to

Delhi Delhi, officially the National Capital Territory (NCT) of Delhi, is a city and a union territory of India containing New Delhi, the capital of India. Straddling the Yamuna river, primarily its western or right bank, Delhi shares borders wi ...

, Howrah, etc. The town is about 150 km by rail and 185 km. by road from

History

The name ‘Dabak’ is a derivative of the Sanskrit word ‘Devark.’ In olden times, water was scarce, and then by the regional language Lang Kha means the same, hence the name of the place came into being. During that time the place was barren land. During the British Invasions, water was brought by wagons and this place was also made the base camps. It was only after the

1950 Assam–Tibet earthquake The 1950 Assam–Tibet earthquake, also known as the Assam earthquake, occurred on 15 August and had a moment magnitude of 8.6. The epicentre was located in the Mishmi Hills in India, known in Chinese as the Qilinggong Mountains (), south of the ...

that the water level raised again. Rangmahala, a place in the outskirts of Lanka had the King's Amusement palace or

Rangmahal Rangmahal is a village in North Guwahati, Kamrup rural district, situated in north bank of river Brahmaputra. Transport The village is near National Highway 31, and connected to nearby towns and cities with regular buses and other modes of tr ...

. After the rulers abandoned Lanka, Khasi-Jayantiya started to rule. When King Viswasundar was the ruler of DABAK, Lanka was an independent state. An inscription of the 13th century discovered near Dabaka has the following lines about Lanka: “ Kachhar rajyad jayantay lankanta rajyabanta Yajnamenong daabeka mandali mathastha karyamasa.” The Lankeswari Temple is of historical significance for the place. It is very much linked to the heart and culture of Lanka. In 1505, the first prophet of the Sikhs,

Guru Nanak Dev Guru ( sa, गुरु, IAST: ''guru;'' Pali'': garu'') is a Sanskrit term for a "mentor, guide, expert, or master" of certain knowledge or field. In pan- Indian traditions, a guru is more than a teacher: traditionally, the guru is a reverent ...

had visited Kamrup,

. This fact is recorded in the documents concerning the numerous journeys undertaken by

Guru Nanak Gurū Nānak (15 April 1469 – 22 September 1539; Gurmukhi: ਗੁਰੂ ਨਾਨਕ; pronunciation: , ), also referred to as ('father Nānak'), was the founder of Sikhism and is the first of the ten Sikh Gurus. His birth is celebrated ...

in various stages of his life. It is said that he had Srimanta Shankardeva, the founder of the Mahapuruxiya Dharma as the Guru traveled from

Dhaka Dhaka ( or ; bn, ঢাকা, Ḍhākā, ), formerly known as Dacca, is the capital and largest city of Bangladesh, as well as the world's largest Bengali-speaking city. It is the eighth largest and sixth most densely populated city ...

. After this journey by the first Guru, Ninth Guru or prophet of Sikhs

Guru Tegh Bahadur Guru Tegh Bahadur (Punjabi: ਗੁਰੂ ਤੇਗ਼ ਬਹਾਦਰ (Gurmukhi); ; 1 April 1621 – 11 November 1675) was the ninth of ten Gurus who founded the Sikh religion and the leader of Sikhs from 1665 until his beheading in 167 ...

also visited

in 1668. This was when the armies of

Aurangzeb Muhi al-Din Muhammad (; – 3 March 1707), commonly known as ( fa, , lit=Ornament of the Throne) and by his regnal title Alamgir ( fa, , translit=ʿĀlamgīr, lit=Conqueror of the World), was the sixth emperor of the Mughal Empire, ruling ...

tried their best to cross the Brahmaputra river and enter the

. They were thoroughly routed by the Ahom general Lachit Borphukan. Guru visited the place called

Dhubri Dhubri (Pron: ˈdhubri) is an old town and headquarter of Dhubri district in Indian state of Assam. It is an old town on the bank of the Brahmaputra river, with historical significance. In 1883, the town was first constituted as a Municipal Bo ...

; a famous Sikh Gurudwara was constructed to commemorate his visit. Every year Sikhs from all over India and foreign lands visit this holy place. The grateful Ahom King invited Guruji to the Kamakhya shrine, where he was honored. While some died and some came back to Punjab, a few stayed on and made Assam their home, raising families. Their descendants today —mainly concentrated in the

Nagaon district Nagaon is an administrative district in the Indian state of Assam. At the time of the 2011 census it was the most populous district in Assam, before Hojai district was split from it in 2016. History Batadrowa gave birth to the Vaishnavite r ...

— are Assamese for all practical purposes, and none speaks Punjabi, but continue to maintain their Sikh identity and observe most tenets and traditions of the religion.