Assam

Before Indian independence in 1947,
this name designated the entire territory
east of Bengal province in northeastern
India; in the time since independence, it
was divided into seven different administrative regions, one of which is the
contemporary state of Assam.
Like all other states in the northeastern corner, much of modern Assam is
culturally distinct from the rest of India.
One marker of this cultural divide is language: whereas most Indians speak languages from the Indo-Aryan or
Dravidian language families, many
tribal people in Assam speak TibetoBurman languages. The bulk of modern
Assam is in the Brahmaputra River valley, which is where most of the Hindus
in the northeast reside.
Despite its remoteness from the rest
of India, Assam does have one very
important sacred place, the temple of
the goddess Kamakhya just outside the
capital of Gauhati. This is one of the
Shakti Pithas, a network of sites connected with the worship of the Mother
Goddess that were established at places
where it is believed that body parts of the
dismembered goddess Sati fell to earth.
Kamakhya is considered the most powerful of all the Shakti Pithas since it is
believed to be where Sati’s vulva (a highly
charged female body part) fell to earth.
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Assam