Places in Jhalda subdivision in Purulia district. Key: M: municipality, C: census town, R: rural/ urban centre, H: historical/ religious centre, X: craft centre, T: tourist centre, △: hills Owing to space constraints in the small map, the locations in the larger map on click through may vary slightly.
According to the 2011 Census of India, Suisa had a total population of 2,649, of which 1,339 (51%) were males and 1,310 (49%) were females. There were 1,310 persons in the age range of 0–6 years. The total number of literate persons in Suisa was 1,541 (67.92% of the population over 6 years).[1]
Suisa is situated at a distance of about 50 km from the district headquarters at Purulia.[2]
Area overview
Purulia district forms the lowest step of the Chota Nagpur Plateau. The general scenario is undulating land with scattered hills. Jhalda subdivision, shown in the map alongside, is located in the western part of the district, bordering Jharkhand. The Subarnarekha flows along a short stretch of its western border. It is an overwhelmingly rural subdivision with 91.02% of the population living in the rural areas and 8.98% living in the urban areas. There are 3 census towns in the subdivision. The map alongside shows some of the tourist attractions in the Ajodhya Hills. The area is home to Purulia Chhau dance with spectacular masks made at Charida. The remnants of old temples and deities are found in the subdivision also, as in other parts of the district.[3][4][5][6][7]
Jainism flourished in the western parts of West Bengal during the 10th-13th century. Many temples were built during this period. Purulia district had a large concentration of Jain temples. Apart from three dilapidated temples at Deuli, many statues of Jain tirthankaras and other Jainism-related articles have been found in the area. With some official initiative, these items have been shifted to a local one-roomed museum at Suisa. When the archaeologist J.D.Beglar explored the area in the 1870s, there were many temples.[8]
Among the iconic images that can be seen are large Vishnu sculpture in the unusual tri-bhanga pose, Ambika (broken), a chaturmukha shrine of Rekha type with a seated tirthankara and images of different tirthankaras, and several related images.[2]
Transport
There is a station at Suisa on the Chandil-Muri line.[9]
^ ab"District Census Handbook, Puruliya, Series 20, Part XII A"(PDF). Suisa - Page 102: Brief Description of Places of Religious, Historical or Archaeological Importance and Places of Tourist Importance of the District. Directorate of Census Operations, West Bengal. Retrieved 21 January 2020.
^Houlton, Sir John, Bihar, the Heart of India, 1949, p. 170, Orient Longmans Ltd.
