The Early History of India, from 600 B.C. to the Muhammadan Conquest, including the Invasion of Alexander the Great c31.s3: III. Kāmarūpa or Assam
The Early History of India, from 600 B.C. to the Muhammadan Conquest, including the Invasion of Alexander the Great c31.s3
- Language
- English
III. Kāmarūpa or Assam
c31.s3.2
The ancient kingdom of Kāmarūpa, although roughly equivalent to Assam, generally occupied an area larger than that of the modern province, and extended westward to the Karatōya river,² thus including the Kūch Bihār State and the Rangpur District. The earliest notice of the kingdom which is of any use for the purposes of the historian is the statement in Samudragupta's inscription on the Allāhābād pillar, recorded about A. D. 360 or 370, that Kāmarūpa was then one of the frontier states outside the limits of the Gupta empire, but paying tribute and owing a certain amount of obedience to the paramount power.³
c31.s3.3
² Mr. Blochmann spells the name as Karataya; others write Karatōya, which seems to be correct.
c31.s3.4
³ *J. R. A. S.*, 1890, p. 879.
c31.s3.5
The next glimpse of this remote region is afforded by the Chinese pilgrim Hiuen Tsang. When he was staying for the second time at the Nālandā monastery, early in A. D. 643, he was compelled, much against his will, to pay a visit to the king of Kāmarūpa, who insisted on making the acquaintance of the renowned scholar, and would not take a refusal. After a short stay at the capital of Kāmarūpa, Harsha Sīlāditya, the Kanauj sovereign, sent a message commanding that Hiuen Tsang should be sent to him. The king replied that Harsha might take his head if he could, but should not get his Chinese visitor. However, when Harsha sent a peremptory order to the effect that he would trouble the king to send back his head by the messenger, that potentate, on second thoughts, deemed it advisable to comply with the request of his suzerain, and hastened to meet Harsha, bringing the pilgrim with him.
c31.s3.6
This king was named Bhāskaravarman, and was also known as Kumāra. He belonged to a very ancient dynasty, which claimed to have existed for a thousand generations. Hiuen Tsang describes him as being a Brahman by caste, but the form of his name indicates that he considered himself to be a Kshatriya or Rājpūt, and it would seem that the pilgrim really meant that Bhāskaravarman was a Brahmanical Hindu in religion. He may have been a ‘Brahmakshatrī’, as the Sena kings were in later times. Buddhism was scarcely known in his country, which did not contain a single monastery.¹
c31.s3.7
¹ Beal, i, 215–17; ii, 195–8; Watters, i, 349; ii, 195–7; *Life of Hiuen Tsiang*, p. 172.
c31.s3.8
Practically nothing more is on record concerning the political history of Kāmarūpa for several centuries. The kingdom was included in the dominions of some of the Pāla kings of Bengal, and Kumārapāla, a member of that dynasty, in the twelfth century appointed his minister Vaidyadeva as ruler of the province with royal powers.²
c31.s3.9
² *Ep. Ind.*, ii, 355.
c31.s3.10
Early in the thirteenth century, about A. D. 1228, the invasions of the Shān tribe named Āhōm began. Gradually the Āhōm chiefs made themselves masters of the country, and established a dynasty which lasted until the British occupation in 1825.³ The dynastic history of Kāmarūpa, being only of local interest, need not be considered further.
c31.s3.11
³ *Catal. Coins I. M.*, vol. i, p. 294; J. Allan, ‘The Coinage of Assam’ (*Num. Chron.*, 1909, pp. 300–31, with three plates).
c31.s3.12
The claims which the province can fairly make on the respectful attention of the outer world rest on other grounds. It is a gate through which successive hordes of immigrants from the great hive of the Mongolian race in Western China have poured into the plains of India, and many of the resident tribes still are almost pure Mongolians. The religion of such tribes is of more than local concern, because it supplies the clue to the strange Tantric developments of both Buddhism and Hinduism which are so characteristic of mediaeval and modern Bengal. The temple of Kāmākhyā near Gauhātī is one of the most sacred shrines of the Sākta Hindus, the worshippers of the female forms of deity, while the whole country is renowned in Hindu legend as a land of magic and witchcraft. The old tribal beliefs are being abandoned gradually in favour of extreme, or even fanatical, Hindu orthodoxy, and the history of Assam offers many examples of the process by which Brahman priests have established their influence over non-Aryan chiefs step by step, and drawn them within the roomy fold of Hinduism. All the various methods of conversion and absorption enumerated by Sir Alfred Lyall and Sir H. Risley have been adopted from time to time.¹
c31.s3.13
¹ Gait, *History of Assam*, Calcutta, 1906; Sir Alfred Lyall, *Asiatic Studies*, First Series, ch. v; Risley, *Census of India, 1901*, Report, pt. i, pp. 519–21, 531.
c31.s3.14
Another good claim to notice is based upon the fact that Assam is one of the few Indian provinces the inhabitants of which successfully beat back the flowing tide of Muhammadan conquest, and maintained their independence in spite of repeated attempts to subvert it. The only Musalman invasion of Kāmarūpa which comes within the limits of the period treated in this volume is the expedition rashly undertaken in A. D. 1204–5 (A. H. 601) by the son of Bakhtyār, Muhammad, the conqueror of Bengal and Bihār. He advanced northwards along the bank of the Karatōya river, which then formed the western frontier of Kāmarūpa, and succeeded in penetrating into the mountains to the north of Darjeeling, but being unable to obtain any secure foothold, was obliged to retreat. His retirement was disastrous. The people of Kāmarūpa having broken down the great stone bridge of many arches, which was the only means by which he could cross the river in safety, nearly all his men were drowned. The leader of the expedition managed to swim across with about a hundred horsemen, and then fell ill from distress at his failure. Next year, A. D. 1205–6 (A. H. 602), he was assassinated.² Subsequent Muhammadan incursions were equally unsuccessful. The Muslim historian, who accompanied Mīr Jumla on his invasion of the country in 1662, expresses in striking phrases the horror with which the country and its people were regarded by strangers.¹ The kingdom retained its autonomy until 1816, when the Burmese appeared and occupied the country until 1824. They were expelled by British troops, and early in 1826 Assam became a province of the Indian empire.
c31.s3.15
² Raverty, transl. *Ṭabaḳāt-i-Nāṣirī*, pp. 560–73; *J. A. S. B.*, vol. xlv, pt. i (1876), pp. 330–3; Blochmann, ibid., vol. xliv, pt. i (1875), pp. 276–85. I accept Raverty's chronology.
c31.s3.16
¹ See Jadunath Sarkar, 'Assam and the Ahoms in A. D. 1660' (*J. B. & O. Res. Soc.*, vol. i, pp. 179-95).