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Art and Craft of Sattra Institute:                                                        

It is only with modern day specialization and development of professional skills that we tend to see closely related fields such as art architecture music, dance and drama etc. as separate professional distinctions…In earlier centuries there was no such professional distinctions In Indian tradition a complete artist was one who knew the 64 arts according to the sastras, and Vatsyayana's Kamasutra. Examples of such integration can be seen from ancient times in temple architecture which formed the nucleus or art practice in all corners on Indian where performance and disciplines of art were conceive as a total expression in these large centres of culture. One art from complemented the other and where one stopped, the other began from it.

Similarly in the Brahmaputra valley the sattra institution upholds the same ideals. All art and crafts practised by the Assamese society centrred around the activities of the sattra institutions, an upshot of the Vaisnava resurgence initiated by Sri Sankaradeva in the last decade of the 15th century. Remarkable for its many sided contributions, literature, a vigorous school of painting to illuminate the texts, wood carving, dance, drama and architecture to house, it all seemed to be the result of a need for a common expression,a result of this new renaissance which influenced the Assamese society from the 16th century onwards.

The sattra monuments are not gigantic in scale but the dignity of their own stature. Stone and masonary were the privileges of the royalty, so the large and rich sattras like Kamalabari, Garamur, Auniati and Dakhinpat in Majuli were almost wholly built of wood and embellished lavishly with carvings paintings and other objects.

The new bhakti movement inspired its adherents and was also the guiding force behind the numerous manuscripts which began to be written and illustrated with great zeal. Thus, the manuscript paintings of Assam are one of the offshoots of this cultural upsurge. Few, even amongst scholars, are aware of these valuable relics though they belong to the pre-Mughal stream of miniature painting in India. Coloured