History of Aurangzib, Based on Original Sources v3.c41.s2: §2. Kuch Bihar and its rulers.
History of Aurangzib, Based on Original Sources v3.c41.s2
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§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.