A History of Assam c13.121

c13.121

There was a difference of opinion among the nobles as to the proper successor to the throne. One party, headed by Kirti Chandra Bar Barua, who had hurried back from Rahā as soon as he heard of Rājesvar Singh’s illness, was in favour of appointing the Nāmrup Raja, Lakshmi Singh, the youngest son of Rudra Singh, and alleged that, on his death-bed, Rudra Singh had expressed a wish that all his sons should succeed to the throne in turn. The Bar Gohāin and others denied this, and supported the claim of Rājesvar’s eldest son; they revived an old scandal that threw doubts on Lakshmi Singh’s legitimacy, and pointed out that he had been born in his putative father’s old age, and was so entirely different from him in colour and features that Rudra Singh himself had doubted if he were really his son. In the end Lakshmi Singh was selected. He took the Ahom name Sunyeophā. It is said that the Parbatiya Gosāin refused to recognize him on the score of his alleged illegitimacy, and that he imported from Bengal a new priest, also a Sākta, who was the first of the Na Gosāins.