A History of Assam c11.25

c11.25

That Sukāphā was the leader of the body of Shāns who laid the foundation of the Ahom kingdom in Assam is a fact established, not only by the unanimous testimony of the *Buranjis*, but also by universal and well-remembered tradition. There is less certainty as to the precise State from which he came, but there seems no reason to discredit the statement of the *Buranjis* to the effect that it was Maulung. In any case, there can be no possible doubt that the original home of the Ahoms was somewhere in the ancient kingdom of Pong. They are genuine Shāns, both in their physical type and in their tribal language and written character. They called themselves Tāi (meaning "celestial origin"), which is the name by which the Shāns still designate themselves, and they maintained a fairly continuous intercourse with the inhabitants of their original home until very recent times. Nor is their movement across the Pātkāi by any means an isolated one. The Khāmtis, Phākiāls, Aitonias, Turungs and Khāmjāngs are all Shān tribes who have, at different times, moved along the same route from the cradle of their race; but the Ahoms were the only ones who did so before the conversion of its inhabitants to Buddhism. The other Shān tribes of Assam are all Buddhists, which shows that they migrated at a later date. The Turungs, in fact, did not reach the plains of Assam until the beginning of the nineteenth century.