The Dynastic History of Northern India (Early Mediaeval Period) v1.c15.135

v1.c15.135

I have not said anything so far about the Surma valley because, strictly speaking, it should not be included in Assam proper. It was only administrative necessity that led the British Government to include it within the jurisdiction of the Chief Commissioner of Assam in 1874. Though it is possible that the Surma valley may have been conquered occasionally by some powerful rulers of Kāmarūpa, yet for all practical purposes it appears to have remained outside the general currents of the history of Assam proper. Attempts have recently been made to show that even the Nidhanpur inscription of Bhāskaravarman, though discovered in Sylhet, record a grant of land near Karṇasuvarṇa, and that it was subsequently carried to its place of discovery by some descendant of the donee who migrated from his original home.² For the history of the Surma valley of this period we have very few authentic documents. Two copper-plate grants of a line of kings were dug up from a brick mound in Bhāṭerā in Sylhet, and were first edited in the Proceedings of the Asiatic Society of Bengal in 1880.³ From these we get the following statement of the genealogy of Keśavadeva and Īśānadeva, the donors of these grants: