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Srimanta Sankardev As an Architect of Social Transformation in Medieval Assam: An Analysis of His Reformist Ideology, Egalitarian Practices, and Neo-Vaishnavite Movement

Year: 2026
Type: article
Abstract: Srimanta Sankardev is recognized for building Assam’s Eka-Sarana Nama Dharma tradition. However, he is equally important for creating different ways to express devotion socially, institutionally, and culturally. This research study considers Sankardev as a change maker by combining historical research and a reproducible qualitative content analysis of documents. From 9 verified scholarly and cultural sources, 60 proposition-level units were drawn, prioritizing the 2020–2025 period, of which historical foundations were used for triangulation. A fixed, rule-based codebook developed 17 themes which included equality, inclusion, accessibility of different religions, collective worship, construction of institutions, use of regional vernaculars, and performance of cultural activities. The most dominant dimensions were construction of institutions (28.3%) and performance of reforms (30.0%). Equality and social inclusion had a positive correlation (ρ = .404, p = .001), and social inclusion was significantly related to equality (Fisher’s exact p = .007; Cramér’s V = .404). There was a strong correlation between community participation and collective worship (ρ = .572, p < .001). The results of the study suggest that the reforms of Sankardev include a system of connected components of accessibility of devotion, participatory congregation, organization, and communication of culture. The study indicates where the boundaries of the study lie: the descriptions of the corpus selected are bounded by the documentary evidence, and do not describe the attitude or behaviour of medieval society in Assam.
DOI: 10.5281/zenodo.22043768
Author: Gunada Nath
Language: English
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W7203905932
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