Assam - History
Assam was the province of Bengal which remained most stubbornly outside the limits of the Mughul empire and of the Muhammadan polity in India. Indeed, although frequently overrun by Musalmán armies, and its western districts annexed to the Muhammadan vice-royalty of Bengal, the province maintained an uncertain independence till its invasion by the Burmese towards the end of the 18th century, and its final cession to the British in 1826.
For centuries, perhaps thousands of years, people and communities had been attracted to the fertile environs of Assam and its abundant natural resources. Streams of people have met and mingled, and cultures and customs have merged. This fusion has evolved into a rich and composite culture, a tribute to the assimilative character of the State and its people.
The migration of people from South East Asia and from southern China to Assam pre-dates the movement of the Aryan people. Although blurred by the mists of time, the history of ancient Assam has much to do with the march of communities in search of abundant and productive land, of which there was plenty. The land of the Kiratas and the kingdom of Pragjyotisha, with its capital at present day Guwahati, is cited in Vedic literature. At the time when the epic battles of the Mahabharata were being fought in the plains of Northern India, the Pragjyotisha empire extended to the Bay of Bengal. In the Puranas and later works, the land of Kamarupa is referred to.
It seems to have been originally included along with the greater part of north-eastern Bengal, in the old Hindu territory of Kámráp. Its early legends point to great religious revolutions between the rival rites of Krishna and Siva as a source of dynastic changes. Its roll of kings extends deep into pre-historic times, but the first Rájá capable of identification flourished about the year 76 AD. Kámráp, the Prágjotishpur of the ancient Hindus, was the capital of a legendary king Narak, whose son Bhagadatta distinguished himself in the great war of the Mahabharata. On the rise of the Koch power, the kings of Kuch Behar wrested a portion of Assam from the kings of the Pál dynasty to whom it belonged.
Assam the word comes from Sanskrit word 'Asoma' means peerless or unparallel. But today's historians believe that the word Assam is related to the Ahom rulers of the state in thirteenth century and made a great contribution to the growth of Assam's life and culture. Assam's history is very old. In the epic period this place was known as 'Pragjyotisha' or the place of eastern astronomy and later it was known as Kamrupa. This is known from Chinese religious traveler Hieun Tsang, who came India around 743 A.D. (he called it Kamolupo, the Chinese invariably converting the 'r' sound into 'l'). At that time Assam King Bhaskaraverman, who was contemporary of Harshavardhan the emperor of Northern India, ruled over the state.
All the earliest references to Assam point to the settlement of a considerable Aryan colony, at any rate in the lower portion of the valley of the Brahmaputra, at a very early period. One of the first Kings of Kamrup is said to have taken part in the war of the Pandavas, and the existence of the Kalita caste, the highest pure Assamese caste after the Brahman, is explained by the theory that at the time of the Aryan colonization of Assam the differentiation of caste by occupation was unknown, but in the course of time, the Hindu dynasties were overthrown, and the sovereignty of the valley passed to races of Mongolian origin, the Koch ruling in Lower, and the Chutiya in Upper Assam.
Both of these kingdoms were, however, overrun and conquered by the Ahoms, a Shan tribe who entered the province in the thirteenth century and had become the dominant power by the middle of the sixteenth. Under their rule the country enjoyed no small measure of prosperity, but at the beginning of the nineteenth century there was a dispute between two rivals for the throne, one of whom called in the Burmese to his aid, and from that time till the province was annexed by the British Government, Assam was a prey to civil war, invasion, and anarchy.
The troubles through which the country passed left marks which even at the outset of the 20th Century had not been obliterated. In the words of Robinson- "Large tracts, once inhabited by a happy and numerous population, had been converted into extensive and unwholesome jungles, and ceased not only to be the haunts of man, but had becom~ hostile to human life " - and though the population was still fairly dense round the seats of Government at Gauhati and Jorhat, in Tezpur, Nowgong, and Lakhimpur the effects of the prolonged disorder were only too plainly to be seen. When, however, it was discovered that tea would pay, and pay most handsomely, at the upper end of the valley, gardens were opened out in the midst of the jungle and coolies imported in thousands, with the result that at each successive census Lakhimpur, Sibsagar, and the sadr subdivision of Darrang have shown a marked deveopment in which the agricultural districts of Lower Assam had not shared.
The condition of affairs in the Valley of the Brahmaputra was the result of all these changes is an Aryan Hindu population, surrounded, and to some extent intermingled, with semi-Hinduized tribes of Mongolian origin, upon which in Upper and Central Assam has been superimposed a large deposit of coolie castes from Bengal, the North-West and the Central Provinces, while population, which originally was densest in the west in consequence of the depredations of the Burmese, was being attracted back to the eastern end of the valley by the magnet of British capital.
Of the early history of Sylhet and Cachar little is known. Sylhet was conquered by the Muhammadans in the fourteenth century and passed the rest of Bengal in 1765. The greater portion of the district is permanently settled, but the settlement, instead of being made with the chaudries or zamindars, was offered direct to all weUMto-do raiyats-a fact which no doubt largely accounts for the independence which is a marked characteristic of the natives of this district. Cachar is believed to have been originally a province of the Tipperah Raja and to have been ceded to the Kachari King, who had his capital at Maibong, on the northern side of the Assam range, on the occasion of his marriage to a Tipperah Princess. At the beginning of the century the Manipuris and Burmese both endeavoured to conquer the district, and, to put an end to the anarchy which prevailed, it was annexed by the British on the death of the last Kachari Raja without heirs. Cachar has been largely colonized from Sylhet, and by the coolies who have come up to the numerous population.
The tribes inhabiting the Assam range were too uncivilized to have preserved description. anything in the way of historical records.
Prior to the advent of the Muhammadans the inhabitants of other parts of India had no idea of history ; and knowledge of them is limited to what can be laboriously pieced together from old inscriptions, the accounts of foreign invaders or travellers, and incidental references in religious writings. On the other hand, the Ahom conquerors of Assam had a keen historical sense; and they have given a full and detailed account of their rule, which dates from the early part of the thirteenth century.
Assam was one of the few countries in India whose inhabitants beat back the tide of Mughal conquest and maintained their independence in the face of repeated attempts to subvert it. Full accounts of these invasions have come down, both from Ahom and from Muhammadan sources, and are interesting not only in themselves, but also from the light which they throw on the old methods of warfare, and from the evidence which they afford of how little superior arms, numbers and discipline can avail against difficulties of communication, inadequate supplies and an unhealthy climate.
The advent of the Ahoms across the eastern hills in 1228 AD was the turning point in Assam history. This state came under British rule in 1826. Prior to this Assam was ruled by Burmese kings. Some of the Burmese king fought against British rulers and as many as 17 Mughal invasion were beaten back by them. Assam has a glorious role in freedom fight. Finally, in 1947 Assam has emerged as a integral part of free India. The present Assam is a shadow of its former self. It suffered diminution because one after another four states were to be born out of its womb. First Nagaland, then Mizoram, Meghalaya came in the next and finally Arunachal Pradesh separated from the control of Assam. The total land area has been reduced to one third of its original size in forty years after independence. Present Assam has come into existence on 21 January 1972.
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