A History of Assam c16.26

c16.26

Satrudaman is the hero of a Bengali novel called *Ranachandi*, which is said to be based on traditions current in Cachar, but the book does not appear to contain any reliable historical information. The previous ruler, his father Upendra Nārāyan, was killed, it is said, in the course of an invasion of Cachar by a detachment of Mir Jumlah's Assam expeditionary force, and Satrudaman and his affianced wife drove them out. As a matter of fact, Satrudaman must have died about forty years before the date of Mir Jumlah's invasion, and the reference is probably to one or other of the invasions of Cachar which took place during the reign of the Emperor Jehangir. The first occurred when Islām Khān was Governor of Bengal, and the second shortly after he had been succeeded (in 1612) by his brother Qasim Khan. The first of these invasions was abortive, but in the second, the Kachāri forts at Asuratikri and Pratāpgarh were captured, and the Kachāri king made peace by giving 40 elephants and a lakh of rupees for the Emperor, 5 elephants and Rs. 20,000 for the Subadar, and two elephants and Rs. 20,000 for Mubariz Khān, the thānādār of Bandāsal who commanded the invading force. In the account of this expedition mention is made of the Khāsias as a tribe living on the Kachāri frontier, and also of a tribe calling themselves Mughals, who claimed to be the descendants of soldiers left in charge of the country by Timur after he had conquered it.*