The Navagraha temple crowns the Chitrasal, or Navagraha, hill. The hill lies in the Chenikuthi-Silpukhuri quarter of eastern Guwahati. The temple is dedicated not to a single deity but to the nava-graha, the nine celestial bodies of Indian astronomy. It is the clearest survival of the tradition that made the old city a centre of astronomical and astrological learning.
The hill of astronomy and the nine planets
Guwahati is the ancient Pragjyotishpura, a name usually read as the “city of eastern astrology” or “eastern learning”. Tradition makes the Navagraha hill the seat of the astronomy and astrology that earned it its Kamarupa-era name. Whatever the literal history, the hill has long been associated with the study of the heavens, and the temple is its visible monument. Within it, nine Siva lingams represent the nine grahas: the Sun and Moon, the five visible planets, and the nodes Rahu and Ketu. Each lingam is draped in a cloth of its own distinct colour, and the central one stands for the Sun. This is an unusual dedication that places the temple in the Saiva-Sakta devotional landscape of the Guwahati hills. It draws those seeking astrological remedies as much as ordinary worship. In the valley below the hill a nine-cornered tank, the Silpukhuri, was dug to match the nine bodies of the sanctum.
A seat of learning
The temple is the visible survival of a wider tradition. The Navagraha hill is remembered as a centre where the motions of the heavens were studied. Here the almanacs and horoscopes that ordered ritual life were cast. The worship of the nine planets is the devotional face of that older science of the calendar. Pilgrims still come to propitiate an inauspicious planet, to set right a horoscope, or to seek a remedy for an astrological affliction. They keep alive a practice that joined astronomy to faith in the old capital. The nine lingams of the sanctum are at once objects of worship and a map of the sky as the Kamarupa learning understood it.
The temple and its rebuilding
The shrine is old in repute. Like the other hill-temples of Guwahati, it has been repeatedly rebuilt. The hill's association with astronomy reaches back into the Kamarupa period, long before the present structure. An Ahom-era inscription is said to locate the Navagraha among the holy places of Pragjyotishpura, though its date and patron are not securely established. The brick temple that stands today was built by the Ahom king Rajeswar Singha during his reign (1751 to 1769). It was raised over the far older sacred site as part of the dynasty's wide programme of endowing the shrines of the recovered Guwahati region. The great Assam earthquake of 12 June 1897 threw down or cracked many of the masonry temples of the valley, and it damaged this one too. It was repaired, and it remains an active and much-visited temple of the city.
Visiting
The temple stands on its hill in the Chenikuthi area, a short way from the city centre. It is easily combined with the other hill-shrines of the old capital. From its summit it offers a wide view over Guwahati and the Brahmaputra. Pair it with the great Kamakhya Temple on Nilachal hill and the river-island shrine of Umananda to make a circuit of the city's sacred hills. It is busiest on days of astrological significance and during the festival calendar. As an active shrine, it is entered with the usual observances. The climb is most pleasant in the cooler, drier months.