Notable Exponents, Sattras and Institutions
This domain tests institutional geography, sattra offices, the four samhatis, and the people who carried Sattriya from monastery to stage.
Sattras and organisation
Majuli in the Brahmaputra is the sattra heartland, with Auniati, Kamalabari, Dakhinpat, Garmur and Bengenaati among the best known; Barpeta, Patbaushi and Madhupur are historically important elsewhere in Assam. Sattras are grouped into four samhatis - Purusha, Nika, Kali and Brahma - which differ in ritual and musical practice. Offices to know: Satradhikar (head of the sattra), Bargayan (chief singer) and Barbayan (chief drummer).
Exponents and institutions
Twentieth-century figures who moved Sattriya from sattra to proscenium and syllabus include Jatin Goswami, Ghanakanta Bora, Sharodi Saikia, Indira P. P. Bora and the khol masters Maniram Dutta Muktiyar and Roseshwar Saikia Barbayan; a younger generation including Anwesa Mahanta works in both idioms. Institutions: the Sangeet Natak Akademi, which recognised the form in 2000 and supports it through its Sattriya Kendra; Srimanta Sankaradeva Kalakshetra in Guwahati; the Asom Sattra Mahasabha and Srimanta Sankardeva Sangha; and university departments in Assam that now teach the form.
Worked example. A stem asks what a Bargayan is. It is an office - the chief singer of a sattra - not a dance style or a tala. Reasoning: both Bargayan and Barbayan are musical ranks inside the sattra hierarchy, and the pair is deliberately used as a distractor.
Traps. Swapping Bargayan and Barbayan; assuming Sattriya is taught only in Majuli; crediting the Akademi with creating the form; listing the four samhatis as tala names.