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History of Aurangzib, Based on Original Sources v3.c41: Chapter XXXI. Invasion of Kuch Bihar and Assam

History of Aurangzib, Based on Original Sources v3.c41

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English

Contents

Chapter XXXI. Invasion of Kuch Bihar and Assam

§i. The Geography of the Assam Valley.

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At the extreme north-eastern corner of our country, through a cleft in the Himalayan range, the drainage of the Tibet plateau escapes into India. Arrested by the rocky wall of the Garo Khasia and Naga hills on the south, the mighty volume of water sweeps westwards, scoring out a deep and broad bed nearly four hundred miles long, from Sadiya to Dhubri, and then turns due south to mingle with the Ganges at Goalnanda. This river is the Brahmaputra, and its valley is the province of Assam. From East Bengal it is divided by the long succession of hills that begin at the s. w. corner of the province and end, in the extreme east, in the Patkoi range, the border-line between Assam and Burma.

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The copious rainfall on the eastern Himalayas, descending in torrents, has carved many a river which cut up the plains north of the Brahmaputra into a number of valleys, each bounded by rivers on three sides and by the mountain on the fourth. The successive advances of the Assam kingdom have been westwards and its shrinkings eastwards, from one of these feeder rivers to the next. These rivers, —the Bharali, the Bar Nadi, the Monas and the Sankosh,—have been the boundary between the kingdom of Assam and its rivals, Kuch Bihar or Mughal India, in different ages. The south Brahmaputra valley is similarly furrowed by innumerable streams, but these have in general a western or markedly north-western inclination.

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Closely surrounded in the north, east and south by rugged hills whose slopes are held by savage tribes, Assam is practically impervious to attack from these directions.∗ But it is not so well protected in the west, where it merges in the plains of North Bengal. From the Kuch Bihar side invasions have been easily conducted into the north Brahmaputra valley, and armies have also sometimes marched into Assam from Dacca by following the left bank of the Brahmaputra and turning the extreme western end of the Garo hills. But every hostile army operating in southern Assam must depend for its success, and even for its very life, on the support of a strong flotilla of war-boats. If it loses the command of the water highway, it is crushed between the river in the north and the savage-haunted hills in the south. Dacca is too far-off and the way to it is too circuitous for any reinforcement to be sent up from it by land in time.

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∗ The only exceptions are the conquests by the Ahoms and the Burmese; but these were rather migrations of kindred tribes.

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The river Sankosh now forms the boundary between Bengal and Assam. But the western districts of Assam, viz. Goalpara and Kamrup, enclosed by the Sankosh and the Bar Nadi, have been connected with Bengal almost throughout their entire history, often politically, always by culture.

§2. Kuch Bihar and its rulers.

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At the end of the 15th century the flourishing kingdom of Kamata, which stretched from the Karatoya river to the Bar Nadi and included the modern districts of Rangpur, Kuch Bihar, Goalpara and Kamrup, was overthrown by the Muslims. A few years of anarchy followed. Then Vishwa Sinha, the son of a Koch mother by a Mech father, founded a dynasty which still rules over KUCH BIHAR. A valiant fighter and born leader of men, he soon gained possession of the entire territory of the old Kamata kings. The successful soldier of fortune (reigned 1515-1540) adopted the Hindu religion and Hindu culture and ably organized his administration and army. His eldest son Nara Narayan (r. 1540-1584) wore the crown for 44 years, but led the life of a saintly recluse. The real power of the State was wielded by the king's younger brother, the Commander-in-Chief Shukladhwaj, surnamed the Kite Prince (Chila Rai), who led the Koch armies almost to the farthest eastern limit of Assam and achieved a series of brilliant but shortlived victories, extorting from the Assam king an admission of Koch suzerainty. His death (c. 1576) was followed by the loss of the recent gains. A domestic quarrel led to still further dismemberment of the kingdom: Raghudev, the son of Chila Rai, claimed a share in the State, and was installed by his meek uncle as king over Kamrup, or the land east of the Sankosh, which the Muslim historians call KOCH HAJO. Raghudev’s son Parikshit attacked Lakshmi Narayan, the son and successor of Nara Narayan on the throne of Kuch Bihar, who sought the aid of the Mughal governor of Dacca. The Muslim army, guided by its Koch auxiliaries, conquered and annexed Parikshit’s kingdom (1612) and held it in force. Thus the Mughal frontier was carried up to the Bar Nadi river, and the Mughal Government came into contact with the Ahom kings who ruled over Eastern Assam, across that stream.*

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∗ Early Kuch Bihar history.—H. N. Chaudhuri’s Cooch Behar State (1903), 220-235; Gait’s History of Assam (2nd ed.) 42-66, 96-100; Buranji viii., 33-42. Gait, 66, says that on the conquest of Koch Hajo the Mughal frontier extended to the Bar Nadi, but on p. 108 he implies that the Bharali was the boundary, as Buranji viii. p. 42 explicitly asserts. Pad., ii. 97, says that Kajali, at the mouth of the Kallang, was the place where Assam proper begins and that Singiri was an Assamese town. This would make the Bar Nadi the eastern frontier of Koch Hajo as held by the Mughals in 1637.

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§3. *The Ahoms: their character and government.*

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The Ahoms were a branch of the Shan race, whose cradle was the hilly region lying north and east of Upper Burma. In the 13th century a prince of their ancient kingdom of Pong left his home with a band of adventurers, crossed the Patkoi range, and established himself in the s. e. corner of the Brahmaputra valley. He then advanced westwards, conquering the tribes on the way, and after many wanderings made Charaideo, in the south Sibsagar district, his capital. The defeated clans were of Mongoloid origin like the Ahoms themselves, and the victors very wisely welded them into one nation by intermarriage and conciliatory treatment. The Ahoms also received frequent reinforcements from their kith beyond the Patkoi hills, and, with their numbers largely increased in these two ways, they continued to force their way down the Brahmaputra valley.

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Over all the population the political organization and civilization of the conquerors were imposed. The Ahoms were a hardy race of demon-worshippers, eating beef and fowl and drinking spirituous liquor, with the Burmese expertness in building stockades and bamboo-bridges, plying boats and making night attacks. Thy were feudally organized under a number of noblemen (called *Gohains*, *Baruas*, and Phukans): The nobles cultivated their estates by slave labour. The entire adult male population was liable to military service. Their army consisted entirely of foot-soldiers, stiffened by elephants, on which rode their captains. The men were ferocious in their manners and brutal in temper, but possessed great bodily strength, power of endurance and fearlessness, making rapid marches and showing an enterprising spirit in war. They were afraid of horses; but a land of jungle, *nalas* and quagmires, with few roads, is not suited to cavalry.

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The king was the patriarch of the clan; he decided questions of social precedence and caste purity, made religious sacrifices for the good of the entire tribe, and was venerated as a semi-divine being and the custodian of the tutelary god of the tribe (*Somdeo*). Ahom punishments were draconic, men being put to death with torture at the slightest fault and even at the mere caprice of the king. Women, no doubt, enjoyed freedom of movement, and lived unveiled, but polygamy was the general practice, wives being regarded as mere chattels, and changing owners, even in the royal family. Cruelty and sensuality were the vices of the Ahom kings, but this fact does not seem to have impaired their military efficiency.∗

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∗ Ahom migration, character and civilization.—Gait, 70-105, 119-122, 141-151, 233-246; *Padishahnamah*, ii. 68; *Fathiyah-i-ibriyah*.

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Such were the Ahoms by origin. But in the course of their stay in Assam, they began to change under the influence of Indian civilization and the Hindu religion. Ahom kings had married into the Kamata and Kuch Bihar families, and Hindu priests and artisans had entered Assam in the train of these queens. Victory in wars with the Pathan Sultans of Bengal had led to the Ahoms learning the use of fire-arms and (probably) of horses from their enemies, and to the settlement of large numbers of captive Bengalis (mostly Muhammadans) in the country. Lastly, the Vaishnav religion was preached by Shankardev and other saints, and it made great progress in the land, introducing a new element into the life of the people and dotting the country with Vaishnav monasteries (*satra*), whose abbots exercised great influence on many of the kings and vast numbers of the common people, though their wealth and Court favour were envied by the nobles. In short, by the end of the 16th century the Ahoms became Hinduized, and fifty years later we find their kings adopting Hindu names. Their old social system still remained, and spirit-worship was still the groundwork of their faith, though both continued to

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51-69, (translated by me in *Journal of Bihar and Orissa Research Society*, i. 182-195.)

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change increasingly under the steady if silent pressure of Hinduism.*

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The weak point of the Ahom kingdom was its diversity of population. The dominant race was the Ahoms, whom the Muhammadan historian calls "the true Assamese" and whose high qualities have been described above. The middle stratum of the population was composed of the Assamese proper,—plainsmen with many Bengal affinities, defective in physical strength, endurance and martial spirit. At the bottom of society lay a vast body of slaves, some being Mongoloid serfs, but most being Bengali prisoners of war. These last were unwilling dwellers in the land, and at the first shock of foreign invasion rose against their masters. (*Fathiyah*, 64, 44, 48—49.)

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§4. *Ahom expansion and wars with Mughals.*

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Throughout the 15th and 16th centuries the Ahom kingdom went on expanding. The many wild tribes on the hill-slopes north and south of the valley were subdued; the many encounters with the Koch kings and Muslim rulers of Bengal resulted on the whole in Ahom success, till by the end of the 16th century their domination stretched up to the Bar Nadi.

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∗ Hindu and Bengali influence on the Ahoms.—Gait, (Hindu marriages) 43, 80, 84, 103, 107; (Bengali settlers), 95, 99, 101, 103; (Hindu religion adopted) 58, 82, 83, 86, 97, 104, 121, 125, 168-170; *Fathiyah-i-ibriyah*, 59, 66.

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river in the north-west and the Kallang river in the s. w.

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Early in the 17th century, the Mughals, after annexing Koch Hajo (1612), had a long war with the Ahoms, who had harboured a prince of the deposed dynasty. At last in 1638 a peace was made, by which the Muhammadans were allowed to retain the country west of the Bar Nadi in the north Brahmaputra valley, and west of the Asurar Ali in the region south of that great river.*

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This peace lasted for 21 years and was broken only amidst the general disorder which spread through the Mughal empire during the great War of Succession.

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The trouble was begun by Kuch Bihar. From Akbar's reign onwards the Koch kings had been obedient vassals of the Mughal emperor, as their only protector from the Pathan Sultans of Bengal and the descendants of Chila Rai in Koch Hajo. They had sent embassies and even personally paid their respects to the throne of Delhi, and the imperial frontier in North Bengal had been always respected by them.

§5. Ahom conquest of Kamrup, 1658.

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But when in 1657 Shuja set out with most of the troops of Bengal to contest the throne, Pran Narayan, the Rajah of Kuch Bihar,* took advantage of the defenceless state of the province, drove away the Mughal envoy who had come to demand the annual tribute, and sent an army under his wazir Bhabanath to arrest an obnoxious vassal who had fled to Mughal territory (Hajo). A small imperial force that advanced to oppose Bhabanath was easily defeated. At the same time the Ahom viceroy of the west was making preparations for war and had bridged the Kallang river, for entering Mughal Kamrup. Mir Lutfullah Shirazi, the *faujdar* of Gauhati, fearing attack from two sides and knowing help from Bengal to be impossible, fled by boat to Dacca "with the speed of lightning and wind." The Assamese occupied the capital of Kamrup without a blow, and seized 140 horses, 40 pieces of cannon, and 200 matchlocks, besides much other property there. "The usurpers of Assam swept the whole country of Kamrup with the broom of plunder, carried off to their own kingdom all the movable and immovable things, and by levelling down houses left no sign of habitation."

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∗ Gait, 107-118; Buranji viii., 43-79. Baharistan (fullest of details up to 1627).

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∗ The Rajah's name is wrongly given in the Persian histories as Bhim Narayan or Pem Narayan. The correct form is given in the Assam and Kuch Bihar chronicles. Pran Narayan's paternal uncle, Bhim Narayan, never came to the throne. The *Buranji from Khunlung and Khunlai*, vol. i. pp. 653-656, gives the best account of the cause of the invasion: "Taking advantage of the quarrel (among the sons of Shah Jahan), Pran Narayan tried to deliver his country from Musalman sovereignty. In the month of Magh he sent word

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Pran Narayan proposed a friendly division of the conquest with the Ahom king Jayadhwaj, but the latter rejected the offer and drove Bhabanath beyond the Sankosh river. Thus the entire western Brahmaputra valley fell into the hands of the Ahoms, and their outposts were pushed on as far south as Hatchila near Karibari, only five days' march from Dacca.*

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This happened early in 1658, and for three years the invaders were left undisturbed. But by June 1660 the civil war was finally over, Shuja had been driven out of India, and Mir Jumla was appointed viceroy of Bengal with orders to "punish the lawless zamindars of the province, especially those of Assam and Mag (Arracan) who had caused injury and molestation to the Muslims."

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to Durlava Narayan (a local Rajah loyally governing a Mughal district) asking him to shake off the (foreign) yoke on the father's country......D.N. replied that P.N. had been given charge of the country by the Musalmans under a *sanad* in due order, and the same thing had been done to him (D. N.), and so he did not like to rise against the Emperor. Hearing this P. N. sent orders to Bhayanat Kaji (sic,) to capture D. N., who fled for shelter to Mahital Narayan of Beltala."

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* For these Koch and Ahom invasions, *Fathiyah*, 6-7; *Buranji* viii, 82-86; A. 196-198; Gait, 127-128.

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The *Purani Asam Buranji* ed. by H. C. Gosvami (1922), pp. 115-119, gives a somewhat different account.

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§6. Mir Jumla prepares for war, 1661.

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"The time for retribution had arrived." Hearing of Aurangzib's final triumph and of the military and naval preparations at Dacca, both the kings of Kuch Bihar and Assam sent envoys offering to restore the territory they had seized, "to guard it in the meantime" as they alleged. Accordingly, a force was sent from Dacca under Rashid Khan to take delivery of Kamrup from the Ahoms. But the disloyalty of a vassal like Pran Narayan could not be pardoned. A second force was detached under Rajah Sujan Singh to conquer Kuch Bihar and punish its king.

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Rashid Khan advanced unopposed to Rangamati (at the western end of Kamrup) and stopped there, while Sujan Singh halted opposite Ek Duar, a fortified gateway leading into Kuch Bihar, and both applied for reinforcements in view of the enemy's superior strength. Then Mir Jumla determined to conduct the war in person. For this, preparations were made on an adequate scale.*

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On 1st November, 1661, the viceroy started from Dacca with an army of 12,000 horse, and 30,000 foot. A vast flotilla of war-vessels (at least 323 boats of all kinds) accompanied him,—the most powerful of them being *ghurabs* or floating batteries, each towed by four long row-boats (called *kosas*) and carrying 14 guns and a crew of 60 men. Most of the naval officers and sailors were Portuguese or half-breeds, with some English and Dutch sailors too. On water the Mughals had an overwhelming superiority.*

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∗ Aurangzib's letter of appointment addressed to Mir Jumla, in Ishwardas, 50a. War preparations at Dacca and abortive negotiations, Fathiyah, 8-9, 25, 40.

§7. Mughals conquer Kuch Bihar.

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Mir Jumla made his way into Kuch Bihar by an obscure and neglected highway. The advance was very slow, as the dense bamboo groves had to be cleared to make a way. In six days the Mughal army reached the capital (19th December), which had been deserted by the Rajah and his people in terror. The name of the town was changed to Alamgir-nagar; the Muslim call to prayer, so long forbidden in the city, was chanted from the lofty roof of the palace, and a mosque built by demolishing the principal temple. The whole kingdom was annexed to the Mughal empire, and an officer, Isfandiyar Beg, left to garrison the capital. The Rajah, an indolent voluptuary, had fled to Bhutan, but his eldest son joined the Muslims in the hope of the throne and even offered to arrest his father.

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∗ On reaching Lakhau (8th March, 1662) the Mughal fleet numbered 323 boats (*Fathiyah*, 43). A few had been lost in a tempest before (Gait, 131). For the European mariners and the doings of the fleet, see the Dutchmen's narrative in Glanius, *Relation of an unfortunate voyage to the Kingdom of Bengala*, (1682), 140-183. Mir Jumla's army is estimated in the *Buranji*s (Gait, 129) at 12,000 horse and 30,000 foot, and in *Fathiyah*, 89, at ten or twelve thousand horse and numerous infantry. Useful information from Dutch sources in *Storia*, iv. 430 (Mir Jumla's original force consisted of 12,000 cavalry.) Manucci (ii. 98) gives him 40,000 horsemen, but that was the full contingent kept under the governor of Dacca (ii. 430). *Riyaz-us-salatin* gives Mir Jumla 20,000 efficient cavalry and numerous infantry.

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From the opening of the campaign Mir Jumla, mounted on a hardy pony, had guided the march. He forbade plunder and outrage by the soldiers and camp-followers, and so strictly did he punish the first offenders that such crimes ceased in the Mughal camp, the people were reassured and came back to their homes and fields, and the imperialists were abundantly supplied with provisions locally.*

§8. Mir Jumla conquers Assam.

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After a 16 days' stay the general left Kuch Bihar (4th January, 1662), absorbed Rashid Khan's detachment at Rangamati, and invaded Assam. "On account of the jungles and numerous nalas the daily progress did not exceed 4 or 5 miles." The men had to go through unspeakable fatigue which the Commander-in-Chief shared with the humblest private. His resolution bore down all opposition of Nature and man. The Ahom army, devastated by cholera, offered a feeble resistance, always retreating before the invaders or being routed with heavy slaughter. The Muslims advanced* victoriously up the Brahmaputra, carrying all the stockades, trenches and holes full of bamboo spikes on the way. Fort after fort was occupied,—Jogigupha at the mouth of the Monas river (20th January), Gauhati, Srighat at the mouth of the Bar Nadi (5th Feb.), Pandu, Beltala, and Kajali at the mouth of the Kallang,—most of which the enemy had evacuated in terror. Some of the feudal lords of Assam—e.g., the Rajahs of Darrang and Dimarua, now deserted to the Mughals.

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∗ For Mir Jumla in Kuch Bihar, Fathiyah, 10—18. For the Assam War, Storia, (ii. 98-102) and Bernier (171-173) are very brief.

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Samdhara at the mouth of the Bharali river and Simla-garh opposite to it on the south bank of the Brahmaputra, were now the only strongholds that lay in the path to Garhgaon, the Ahom capital. On 25th February, Simla-garh was most gallantly stormed by Dilir Khan, and this feat struck such terror into the hearts of the Ahoms that they fled from the almost impregnable fort of Samdhara without waiting for an attack. The Ahom fleet tried its fortune against the Mughal navy in the night of 3rd March, when Mir Jumla's army was too far from the bank to co-operate in the defence; but the Mughals gained a signal victory, annihilating the enemy's naval power and seizing 300 boats.

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∗ Mir Jumla's advance to Lakhau, Fathiyah, 18-43; Buranji viii, 82-90 (mentions two battles, viz., at Pancharatna on the Monas and at Samdhara, at both of which the Ahoms were defeated). Gait, 129-133. The naval battle in Fathiyah, 37-39, and Glanius, 154-161. Full history of the Mughal invasion in Buranji from Khunlung and Khanlai, i. 655-715, ii. 1-9, after which Purani Asam Buranji (ed. H. C. Gosvami) has no independent value.

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Then, by way of Salagarh and Lakhau, the invaders reached Garhgaon on 17th March. Jayadhwaj had fled away, abandoning his capital and all his property. His chief commander, the Bar Gohain, after retreating along the north bank of the Brahmaputra, parallel to Mir Jumla's line of march on the south bank, now fled to the Tiru mountains. The Ahoms recognized that it was impossible to resist the Mughal army.

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From 19th December, 1661, the day of the fall of Kuch Bihar, to 17th March, when he entered Garhgaon, Mir Jumla's advance had been a triumphal march. As the historian Talish rightly boasts, "Two kingdoms have been seldom conquered in the course of the same year" by one army. The spoils taken in Assam were enormous:—82 elephants, 3 lakhs of Rupees in cash, 675 pieces of artillery, 1343 camel-swivels, 1200 *Ramchangis*, 6750 matchlocks, 340 maunds of gunpowder, a thousand and odd boats, and 173 storehouses of paddy, each containing from 10 to 1000 maunds of grain.∗

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∗ Capture of Garhgaon, *Fathiyah*, 43-45 (march from Lakhau), 47-48 and 49-50 (spoils of war), 66-69 (city described). Gait, 134.

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§9. Mughal army at Garhgaon during rains.

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The rainy season was approaching, and Mir Jumla made his arrangements for going into cantonments and keeping hold of the country. Owing to the shallowness of the Dikhu river on which Garhgaon stood, the fleet could not sail up to that town, but had to halt some 18 miles north-west, at Lakhau, which stood at the junction of the old beds of the Brahmaputra and Dihing rivers. The army, however, could not leave Garhgaon, as the immense booty seized there could not be removed for want of transport and the elephants,—the richest portion of the spoils,—took time to be trained for marching. The Nawab with the main army went into quarters at Mathurapur, a village lying on a high ground, seven miles s. e. of Garhgaon (31st March). The Ahom capital, containing all the artillery, elephants, stores and property of the Mughal army, was held by a strong garrison under Mir Murtaza. Many outposts were set up: north of Garhgaon at Ramdang and Trimohani up to the point where the Dikhu falls into the Dihing; westwards at Gajpur and Dewalgaon on the way to Lakhau: southwards at Deopani and Silpani up to the skirt of the Tiru hills; and eastwards at Abhaypur, 16 miles from Garhgaon on the Namrup side. A body of sturdy men from

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Topography of Garhgaon and its environs, trans. by me in Journal B. & O. Research Society, iv. 483-486.

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Dariabad (in Oudh) under Jalal Khan held the bank of the Dihing, evidently north-east of Garhgaon. From Lakhau westwards the line of posts ran along the Brahmaputra to Gauhati.

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The enemy's forces were thus distributed: the Bar Gohain occupied the mountains south of Garhgaon, most of the other nobles with their followers lived in the huge island of Majuli, formed by the fork of the Brahmaputra and the Dihing, while the Rajah fled to Namrup, the easternmost province of his dominion.*

§10. Constant fighting with Ahoms.

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But there was no repose in the Mughal outposts even from the first. The Ahoms had been scared away and not crushed. They soon resumed the offensive. Throughout the month of April there were frequent skirmishes, mostly night attacks on the outposts. Even Garhgaon was assaulted; but the sleepless vigilance of Mir Murtaza foiled the attempt. On the whole the balance of fighting was in favour of the Mughals, when early in May, the rains came down in torrents, the rivers rose in flood, the movement of troops by land became impossible, and the imperial outposts were isolated. In fact, during the whole rainy season, from the beginning of May to near the end of October, the Mughal army in Assam lived in a state of siege.* Each of its posts stood like an island surrounded by water,—the few raised paths being held by the enemy, and no provision coming from the fleet at Lakhau because the river of Garhgaon was not deep enough for the large armed boats, while the small trading vessels could not safely ply on it so long as the Ahom entrenchments on its banks were not carried.

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∗ Disposition of the rival forces, *Fathiyah*, 69-74; Gait, 135-136. Fighting during the rainy season, *Fathiyah*, 75-118, 119-127 (doings of the fleet at Lakhau), 128-139 (epidemic in Mughal camp); *Buranji* viii. 91-92, *Buranji from Khunlung and Khunlai*, ii. 1-5; Gait, 137-138. I have often borrowed the language of the *Fathiyah*, with or without quotation marks.

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The rain poured down incessantly, turning the fields into lakes and the *nalas* into raging torrents. The Mughal army consisting mainly of cavalry and fighting with cumbrous heavy artillery, could not operate freely when cramped within its cantonments. At times even the tents were flooded, and horse and foot had to stand knee-deep in water. For lack of proper food, cavalry horses and draught cattle perished by the thousand. No supplies of any kind, not even news, could come from the outside world.

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∗ "In no history has it been read that in any age from the advent of Adam to this time a force of 10 or 12 thousand cavalry and many infantry and numberless camp-followers remained for six months powerless and enclosed like the centre of a circle by brooks and streams,—so that nobody could place his foot outside the circumference of the camp." *Fathiyah*, 89. One MS. reads "42,000 cavalry." But 42,000 was the total strength.

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The nights were disturbed by the noisy attacks of the Ahoms.

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§11. Mir Jumla's communication with fleet cut off.

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Early in May, Dewalgaon was attacked by the enemy, but relieved in time. On the 10th, however, the outpost at Gajpur fell, and the Ahoms held the north bank of the Dihing from Trimohani to near Lakhau, cutting off communications between the Mughal army and navy. Mir Jumla sent a detachment under Sarandaz Khan with ten war-boats and several empty merchant vessels under Muhammad Murad to recover Gajpur. But the two commanders quarrelled, the land force returned from the way (23rd May), the flotilla pushed on, but was attacked by the Ahoms from land and water alike and fled in a panic, losing all the material and ships to the enemy. Only the boats of Dilir Khan and his Afghans forced a way through the enemy's lines and reached Dewalgaon in safety.

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This success emboldened the Ahoms. An attack on the *thana* of Deopani was repulsed after desperate fighting, but the place continued to be invested. At Garhgaon, too, the enemy concentrated and kept the garrison in perpetual alarm. The neighbouring peasantry, who had submitted to the Mughals, now began to flee away. To complete the misfortune of the invaders the news arrived that Kuch Bihar had been recovered by its Rajah and the imperial garrison expelled from the country.

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At the end of May, Mir Jumla made a great effort to reopen communications with the fleet. Farhad Khan, the best fighter in the Mughal army, was sent out with a picked force to destroy the enemy's trenches on the way, reinforce the *thanas* of Ramdang and Trimohani, restore that of Gajpur, and fetch supplies from Lakhau.

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It was a formidable task, doomed to failure from the outset, by reason of his lack of boats. Leaving Garhgaon in the night of 27th May, he waded through mud and ditches to the village of Tiok* between Trimohani and Gajpur, where his further progress was rendered impossible by flood.† Farhad Khan in despair tried to return to Trimohani, but found his path barred by Ahom entrenchments and wet ditches. The enemy's boats surrounded his force and began to gall him with artillery fire. He had no boats and no provisions, and his fate seemed hopeless. For a week he was besieged where he stood, unable to fetch provisions or counter-attack the enemy for want of boats.

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∗ Different from Tiok of Gait's map. The *Buranji Khunlung* mentions this name. The Persian MS. reads *Batak* or *Tik*.

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† "The field looked like a larger river than the Dihing itself. No road was visible in any direction. The rain fell from the sky and water swelled up from the ground; the flood spread over the encampment; the tents looked like bubbles on the surface of the water; the horsemen sat all night on their chargers, and the infantry stood on their legs [in water]." *Fathiyah*, 82.

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A relieving force under Muhammad Mumin Beg was held up on the way by a rise in the flood. Dilir Khan's proposal to send a column on elephants to the rescue of Farhad Khan, was rejected as likely to involve only additional loss. Consternation and despair reigned at the Mughal head-quarters and Farhad Khan's force was given up for lost.

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But that commander's firmness and military skill triumphed over difficulties which would have overwhelmed a lesser man. After being beleaguered for a week, during which he ate up his oxen and horses, he seized some Ahom boats by a clever feint, and early next morning crossed the *nala*, surprised the negligent Ahom force on the other bank, and put it to utter rout. The Mughals now returned to Trimohani in safety (about 6th June).

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§12. Garhgaon completely invested.

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"After the return of Farhad Khan the roads were all closed, and the audacity of the Ahoms passed all bounds." It became impossible to issue from any outpost or send support to it. Mir Jumla, therefore, withdrew all his *thanas*. The Ahom king recovered all his country east of Lakhau. The Mughals held only Garhgaon and Mathurapur, and so close was the enemy's investment that even between these two camps traffic was not safe without a strong escort. The beleaguered Mughals despaired of ever returning to Hindustan, and at Delhi "funeral rites were performed for the Assam expeditionary force."

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The vigour of Ahom attack was now redoubled. Their king himself came out of Namrup and took post at Solaguri, only four days' march from Garhgaon. The Baduli Phukan was appointed prime minister and Commander-in-Chief and sent to destroy the invaders. Orders were issued to all the nobles and people of the kingdom to assist and obey him implicitly.

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The Phukan ran up six miles of walls—broad, high, turretted and strong,—on the bank of the Dilli, east of Mathurapur, connecting the southern hills with the Dihing. But a severe defeat at the hands of Dilir Khan put an end to his night attacks on Mathurapur. A detachment under Sujan Singh chastised the Rajah of Sairing, who was meditating an attack on Garhgaon. The minor encounters that took place almost daily are beyond count. The well-bred cavaliers of Delhi fought without heeding how they were blistered by the sun, or soaked in water and bespattered with mud,—but ever vigilant and ever ready to repel the enemy. "The saddles were never bare of the riders; the horses' backs were never stripped of the saddles; servants ceased to attend on their masters, but each and all, at the least alarm, leaped up from his post and wielded his sword with both hands.”

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§13. The fight for Garhgaon.

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After his failure to take Mathurapur, the Ahom general turned against Garhgaon and attacked it every night. He burnt down all the houses of the Rajah and the nobles outside the bamboo palisade of the city and in its environs. But Mir Jumla strengthened the defence by sending Farhad Khan (14th June) there. The fortifications of the city were improved and rearranged. Vigorous sorties were made to dislodge the enemy from the gardens and stockades in the neighbourhood.

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After almost daily attacks and alarms, an assault in force was delivered on Garhgaon in the night of 8th July. The Ahoms broke down the bamboo railing on the north side of the palace enclosure, routed the Buxari matchlock-men posted there, and seized half the enclosure, which was the citadel of Garhgaon. “Great confusion and tumult arose.” The darkness of the night added to the confusion as the advancing Mughals could not tell friend from foe. Happily, some of the Ahoms set fire to the thatched roof of a mansion and the blaze enabled the Mughals to charge and expel the enemy. A heroic onset by Farhad Khan cleared even the embankment outside the fencing, but he was wounded in the fight.

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Finally, by the exertion of every man in the garrison the fort was completely recovered, and the night of crisis passed away.

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A mud wall was rapidly run up in the place of the bamboo fencing, and the ground in front of it was cleared of houses and trees. This wall, in fact, saved Garhgaon. Thereafter the night attacks continued, no doubt, and the grandest of all the assaults was delivered on 12th July by the entire Ahom army in four divisions from four sides at the same time; but they all failed, and never again was the enclosure penetrated by the enemy. Moreover, from the middle of July the garrison began to make vigorous reprisals. Under the new commandant, Rashid Khan, they repeatedly sallied out and dispersed the enemy from the banks of the three streams that lie between Garhgaon and Mathurapur. "In short, repose and peace visited the inmates of the city and fort of Garhgaon." And on 7th July couriers brought the happy news that the fleet at Lakhau had kept communication with Bengal open and was more than holding its own in the encounters with the Ahoms of Majuli island.

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§14. Pestilence and famine in Mughal camp.

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But man is the least of the enemies that an invader of Assam has to dread. In August a terrible epidemic broke out at Mathurapur. From the hill immediately south of it, bearing the appropriate name of Fever Mountain (*Jwar Parbat*) blew pestilential airs and from the foot of the hill rolled down streams of putrid water. In the Mughal camp fever and flux carried off hundreds daily. Medicine had no effect, and the dead could not be given a decent burial on account of their vast number. Dilir Khan's corps was reduced from 1,500 troopers to about 450. The whole of Assam was infected, and two hundred and thirty thousand of its people died of disease that year, according to the Baduli Phukan's estimate.

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In the Mughal camp no suitable diet or comfort was available for the sick; all had to live on coarse rice; no wheat, no pulse, no *ghee*, no sugar, and no opium or tobacco except a little at fabulous prices. A pipe of tobacco sold at Rs. 3, a *tola* of opium at a gold *mohar*, a *seer* of mung-dal at Rs. 10, and salt also at the same rate as the last. The Hindustani and Turki soldiers languished for want of wheaten bread; the horses perished from eating rice. For a time the Muslim soldiers and camp-followers lived on the meat of the lean and worn out draught oxen, till these too came to an end. The soldiers,—Rajput and Muslim alike, were opium-eaters to a man, and they underwent unspeakable agony at being deprived of the accustomed drug.

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At last life at Mathurapur became unbearable, and on 17th August the army returned to Garhgaon. Much of the stored rice and many of the sick were left behind for want of transport. "It is not known what fate overtook them when the Ahoms reoccupied Mathurapur."

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The exultant Ahoms renewed their attacks on Garhgaon and there was fighting every night outside the fort. A grand attack on 15th September was defeated and the victorious Mughals chased the enemy for miles with heavy slaughter. Thereafter the Ahoms grew quiet and shrank from again provoking the Mughal army. But the pestilence now reached its extreme. The refugees from Mathurapur had infected the garrison of Garhgaon, and diverse and mutually opposed diseases broke out. "All kinds of food-stuffs disappeared except coarse red rice, without salt, and the fruit of the lime tree. Poor men did not spare the leaves on the trees, the grass on the ground or the herbs on the riverside in the pang of hunger." Mir Jumla lived and ate like the common soldiers, though he had a good store of delicacies. Much heroic self-sacrifice and social service* were rendered by some other Muslim officers too, in that dreadful period.

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By the third week of September, the worst was over. The rain began to decrease, the flood went down, the roads reappeared, "pleasant breezes began to blow, and flowers to blossom." A few days earlier cheering news had come from the fleet at Lakhau. which had restored the *thana* at Dewalgaon.

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∗ *Fathiyah*, 130-132 and 137-138 (famine and epidemic in consequence of eating coarse food); 130 and 131 (agonies of habitual opium-eaters); 131 (Mahmud Beg, paymaster, makes a gift of his store of tobacco); 138 (Muhammad Mumin Tabrizi, historiographer, nurses the sick, till he dies of disease).

§15. Success of the Mughal navy at Lakhau.

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Through all these dark months of alarm, suspense and even despair, the one steadfast ray of hope came from the Mughal navy under admiral Ibn Husain. The *nawwara* saved itself and thus saved the army, for, no invader of the Brahmaputra valley from Bengal can triumph or even remain alive without the mastery of the water and unbroken communication with his base by boat. When, early in the rainy season, Mir Jumla was isolated by the enemy, Ibn Husain acted on his own initiative very wisely and successfully. He made no futile attempt to reopen the road to Garhgaon before the return of dry weather, he withdrew the *thana* of Dewalgaon as needlessly expensive, but strengthened the outposts at Koliabar and westwards as vitally necessary for safeguarding his communication with Bengal. His boats plied up and down the river and kept constant touch with Gauhati and through it with Dacca and Delhi. Then he landed and made reprisals against the Ahom nobles sheltering in the Majuli island, so as to make it impossible for them to molest the fleet at its anchorage at Lakhau.

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And finally, when the rains began to decrease he was first in the field; he re-established the *thana* of Dewalgaon and sent messengers with news of the outside world to the besieged Nawab and co-operated from the north to open the road to Garhgaon.*

§16. Mir Jumla resumes the offensive after the rains.

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It was now Mir Jumla's turn to make an effort and open the way to Lakhau from his side. For this purpose the Dikhu was bridged near Garhgaon after three unsuccessful attempts. A force was sent (25th Sep.) under Abul Hasan to follow the circuitous high road from the Dikhu bank opposite Garhgaon, by way of Sairing and the southern hills, to Dewalgaon. The expedition was an unqualified success : outposts were set up at Sairing and Gajpur, Dewalgaon was reached and communication reopened with the fleet. From Lakhau large quantities of provisions were now sent by land and water under escort, and arrived at Garhgaon on 24th and 31st October respectively.

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∗ Doings of the Mughal fleet stationed at Lakhau, *Fathiyah*, 119-127. "If, God forbid it! the least weakness had overtaken the fleet, then immediately on hearing the news of it the men of the army would have cut the thread of the hope of life, and a terrible disaster would have taken place, and the liberation of the army would have become difficult." (*Ibid.* p. 126.)

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Plenty now took the place of famine, and the joy of the Mughal camp knew no bound. The land having dried, the Mughal cavalry was again irresistible, and Jayadhwaj and his nobles fled to the hills of Namrup a second time. The Assamese peasantry, who had returned during the rains, again deserted their fields and huts and betook themselves to the hills across the Brahmaputra with their families and movable property.

§17. His march to Tipam.

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Mir Jumla now resumed the offensive.* On 10th November, a flotilla left Garhgaon under Abul Hasan, made its way up the Dilli river from its mouth and took the Baduli Phukan’s trenches in the extreme rear, routing the Ahoms after an obstinate fight. But the enemy’s lines at that place were 20 miles from Garhgaon. So, on the 16th Mir Jumla himself set out to drive the enemy off and hunt the Rajah out of Namrup. After taking the Baduli Phukan’s entrenchments north-east of Garhgaon, he arrived at the Dihing on 20th November, and then by way of Solaguri at Tipam, on the other side of the river (18th December). This was destined to be the farthest point of his advance.

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On 20th November he had a fainting fit. “This was the beginning of the disease of which he was to die." But he clung tenaciously to his purpose, and continued to lead the army. On 30th November the Baduli Phukan came over to the Mughal side, and was highly rewarded and made the Emperor's viceroy for Eastern Assam. More Ahom notables followed his profitable example of desertion, and Jayadhwaj was left helpless and alone in the pestilential hills of Namrup.* The Baduli Phukan soon raised a local levy of three to four thousand men and accompanied the Mughal Van in an attempt to hunt his former master down.

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∗ Mughals resume the offensive at the end of the rainy season, Fathiyah, 139-153; Buranji from Khunlung and Khunlai, ii. 4-9.

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But on 10th December, Mir Jumla had a severe attack of illness; a burning fever seized him, to which pleurisy was soon added. Still he persisted in advancing, and reached Tipam on the 18th. But the entire army refused to enter Namrup, whose very air was said to be fatal to all forms of life, and where no provision could come from outside by land or water.† The soldiers and officers alike plotted to desert their general and return home. But Dilir Khan quieted them and at the same time counselled Mir Jumla to give up his purpose.

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∗ Desertion of Ahom nobles, Fathiyah, 96, 147-150; Buranji viii. 92-93; Khunlung & Khunlai, ii. 1-2, 6-8 (long list of traitors). "On hearing the news of Baduli Phukan having been made Rajah [of Namrup under Mughal suzerainty] half the men left the king." (p. 8).

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† Their desire to escape from Assam was sharpened by the news that owing to a famine in Dacca no grain could be expected from Bengal, and that even the fleet at Lakhau had been put on reduced rations and the sailors were despondent. (Fathiyah, 149).

§18. Treaty of peace.

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Meantime the Ahom king and nobles despairing of resistance, had been making overtures of peace. And now Mir Jumla listened to them, and through Dilir Khan's mediation a treaty was signed on the following terms :

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(i) Jayadhwaj would send his daughter and the sons of the Tipam Rajah to the Mughal Court.

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(ii) The Ahom king would deliver immediately a war-indemnity of 20,000 *tolas* of gold, 1,20,000 *tolas* of silver, and 20 elephants to the Emperor (besides 15 and 5 elephants for Mir Jumla and Dilir Khan respectively).

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(iii) During the next 12 months he would deliver 3 lakhs of *tolas* of silver and 90 elephants in three equal instalments, as the balance of the indemnity.

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(iv) Thereafter he would pay an annual tribute of 20 elephants.

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(v) Pending the full payment of the indemnity, the sons of the Burha Gohain, the Bar Gohain, the Garhgaonia Phukan, and the Bar Patra Phukan, were to be held by the Nawab as hostages.

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(vi) Assam west of the Bharali river on the north bank of the Brahmaputra and west of the Kallang river on the south bank,* was to be annexed to the Mughal empire. Thus the Mughals were to get more than half of the province of Darrang, rich in elephants.

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(vii) The captives carried off by the Ahoms from the Mughal dominions (esp. Kamrup) were to be released, as also the wife and children of the Baduli Phukan whom the king had thrown into prison.†

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† Peace, Fathiyah, 95-96 (early abortive negotiations), 154-159, Buranji viii. 93-94; Book II. (b) pp. 3-8 (full details of the instalments of war-indemnity).

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On 5th January, 1663, the Ahom king's daughter, hostages, and some gold silver and elephants, as part of the indemnity, reached the Mughal camp, and five days later Mir Jumla began his return march.‡ The Nawab travelled by *palki* owing to his illness, and after suffering many hardships on the way and constantly getting worse, reached Pandu on 11th February. Here he made his dispositions for the administration of Kamrup and the reconquest of Kuch Bihar, and conciliated and gave leave to the vassal Rajahs of Darrang and Dimarua who had joined his side. Baritala was reached on 28th February, but the alarming increase of his illness forced him to give up the plan of invading Kuch Bihar in person; and at last, yielding to medical advice he embarked in a boat and glided down the river towards Dacca, dying on the way on 31st March, 1663. (Fath. 160-171.)

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∗ Dimarua, Beltala, and the kingdom of the Nakti Rani adjoining the Garo hills, were included in Mughal Assam. For Nak-kati Rani, J. B. & O. R. S. i. 182 n.

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‡ The rapture of his army at the order of retreat can be judged from the fact that the subject fills two pages of Talish's history with rhapsodies.

§19. The losses and gains of the expedition.

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The Mughal *thanas* were safely withdrawn from the country restored to the Ahoms, and the retreat of the army and navy alike was effected skilfully and cautiously, without any loss.

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Judged as a military exploit, Mir Jumla's invasion of Assam was a success. He overran the country almost to its farthest limits, kept hold of the capital, forced the Rajah to make a humiliating treaty, realized a large indemnity, and secured the promise of a large cession of territory and further payments. If its political consequences were not permanent, if the ceded districts were lost and even Gauhati wrested from the Mughal grasp only four years after his death, the fault was not his. No race can maintain an empire unless its sons are willing to garrison their conquests, and Mughal soldiers were heartily sick of this land of flood and earthquake, pestilence and witchcraft. It is surprising that Aurangzib did not lay to heart his own experiences in Balkh in his father's reign.

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The one dark spot in the campaign was the isolation of the Mughal troops during the six months of rain. But this in itself would have mattered little if Garhgaon could have been provisioned with the accustomed food and comforts of the warriors of Upper India and their horses. The beleaguered army suffered many privations, but they were not once defeated by the Ahoms; their losses were not from the enemy's sword but from the stroke of pestilence which the general could not have foreseen or averted. At the end of the rainy season he was once more ready to assert his power, and the Ahoms found themselves utterly helpless. The shock of Mughal invasion impaired the fabric of the Ahom State, the feudatories became refractory, the population was woefully thinned by war famine and plague, the king died a broken down man only eight months after Mir Jumla's return, and so miserably crushed was the country by the Muslim attack that the gods had to be propitiated with special rites to bring national prosperity back.*

§20. Greatness of Mir Jumla's character.

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Though Mir Jumla's expedition ended in heavy loss of men, his own death from disease and exhaustion, and the speedy loss of his acquisitions in Kuch Bihar and Assam, yet his character shone with supreme radiance in this enterprise. He did nothing which does not reflect the highest credit on him. No other general of that age conducted war with so much humanity and justice, nor kept his soldiers, privates and captains alike, under such discipline; no other general could have retained to the last the confidence and even affection of his subordinates amidst such appalling sufferings and dangers. The owner of 20 maunds of diamonds, viceroy of the rich province of Bengal, he shared with the meanest soldier the privations of the march and brought premature death on himself by scorning delights and living laborious days. On the day when he crossed the Kuch Bihar frontier, he issued strict orders forbidding plunder, rape and oppression on the people, and saw to it that his orders were obeyed. The stern punishment which he meted out to the first few offenders had a

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∗ "My brother Sutamla [Jayadhwaj Sinha] did not offer any sacrifice to Indra and other gods. So the Musalmans could come to our country and devastate it. The Karis and Hajuas were massacred"

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and great misery was suffered by all." (Order of Chakradhwaj in Buranji Khunlung etc. ii. 25-27). "When the war with the Musalmans came to an end, most of the Dekaris ceased to pay their tribute to the heavenly king" (Phuleshwar Phukan's Buranji, 337). The vassal Rajahs of Darrang and Dimarua had gone over to the Mughals. The helplessness of Jayadhwaj Sinha when he made peace with Mir Jumla is admitted in Buranji Khunlung &c., ii. 8-9, "Book II." (b) 2, viii. 93. "The Baduli Phukan told Khwajah Bhor Mal that up to that time (July 1662), 2,30,000 Assamese had perished of pestilence in the hills." (Fathiyah, 129).

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salutary effect.* ‘‘This order continued in force up to the day of the return of the army from Assam, and during the year’s stay of the imperial army in that country, not a single officer, private or camp-follower durst even cast a wistful glance of plunder or kidnapping at the property and women of the people of the land.’’ And when during the rains Farhad Khan made an example of the treacherous villagers near Ramdang, who after professing submission to the Mughals used to join the Ahoms in their night attacks, Mir Jumla was displeased at the maltreatment of their women, condemned such ‘‘frightfulness,’’ and set the captives free at once. At the time of the retreat from Assam, he forbade his army ‘‘even more strongly than before to molest the peasantry of the country or to rob their goods.’’† We realize Mir Jumla’s peculiar excellence more clearly by contrast with others. When his eagle eyes were removed, the Mughal officers began to oppress the people of Kuch Bihar and lost that kingdom by exciting popular hatred.

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† Mir Jumla’s strict discipline and prohibition of plunder, Fathiyah, 15, 35, 160, 86-87 (Farhad Khan censured).

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With a hero like Mir Jumla, the rhetoric of the historian Talish ceases to be extravagance; his eulogy of the general is not fulsome flattery but homage deservedly paid to a born king of men.

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∗ Fathiyah (35-36) humorously describes the disappointment of the would-be plunderers and ravishers at the frustration of all their hopes.

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