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Chatthip Nartsupha
Ranoo Wichasin
THE STATE OF KNOWLEDGE OF AHOM HISTORY

This article discusses five topics:

1. The importance of the knowledge of Ahom history;
2. The state of knowledge of Ahom history at present: the English and the
Assamese schools;
3. The state of knowledge of Ahom history at present: the Tai school;
4. The knowledge of Ahom history from reading the Ahom Buranji and other
Ahom documents in the Tai language;
5. A direction for the study of Ahom history in the future.

I. The importance of the knowledge of Ahom history

At present there are about 2 million Ahom people. They are the largest group of
population in the Upper Assam region of India, which in total has approximately
7 million people.1 The Tai Ahom people migrated from Muang Mao north of the
Shall state in the 13th century. They crossed over the Patkal mountain range to
settle in the Brahmnaputra river valley.2 A study of this group of people is
important in at least three ways:
1. This group of Tai people did not have much contact with other Tai groups over
a long period. Therefore their historical documents reflect many archaic
elements of the Tai tribe, which have been lost or obscured among other Tai
groups. They belong to a Tai society and culture which does not have
Buddhism. They retain beliefs in natural and ancestral spirits. Their class

A paper submitted to the 'International Seminar on Tais of North East India and Their Relation to Other
Tais of Southeast Asia and China', organized by Ban Ok Pub Lik Muang Tai (Eastern Tai Literary
Association), February 7-8, 1995, Dispur, Assam, India.
1
This is an estimate made by the Ban Ok Pup Lik Muang Tai Association. The exact figure is unknown,
because the Indian government had not made a population census categorized by Ahom ethnicity since
1931. Professor Nomal Gogol estimated that the Ahom population was 1.3 million, see Nomal Gogoi.
Tai People of India: Their Language and Culture. in The Tai. Vol. 1, Chu-Ka-Fa Year 766 (A.D. 1994),
p. 21.
Nang Pratashlata Buragobain estimated that in 1989 there were 1.07 million Ahom, see Nang
Pratashlata Buragohain. Spatial Distribution of the Ahom Population. in The Tai. Vol. 1, Chu-Ka-Fa
Year 766, p. 64.
In 'The Ahom Population in Assam: A Spatial Analysis of Growth and Distribution', a paper presented
to the 5th International Conference on Thai Studies, School of Oriental and African Studies, London
1993, Nang Buragohain mentioned that the Ahom were concentrated in the districts of Sibsagar,
Dibrugarh, Jorhat, Golathat, Dhemaji, Tinsukia and Lakhimpur.
2
Sir Edward Gait. A History of Assam. 1926; 2nd edition reprint, Guwahati: Lawyer's Book Stall, 1992, p.
73.

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division depends much on ethnicity. A study of this group of Tai people will
help us to search for the original roots of Tai society and culture.
2. This group of Tai people was able to establish a large kingdom. They created a
state of which the Tai tribe was the ruler. At one time their kingdom had an area
approximately half of the present-day Thailand. The kingdom was independent
for 600 years from the 13' to the 19' century. This Ahom kingdom was the
largest Tai kingdom besides Ayutthaya. As the kingdom was in existence for a
long time, it because the depository of a highly developed culture in the forms
of manuscripts, buildings, rituals and customs. The Ahom were different from
other Tai groups which had attained only the level of development of
principalities. The Ahom people had their own writing and they liked to record
their history. Their chronicles are mines of knowledge of ancient Tai society and
culture.
3. At present the Ahom and other Tai tribes in Assam are very active in the study
of Tai history and language. The government of Assam has a policy to teach the
Tai language. A budget has been allocated to hire 200 Tai language teachers for
elementary schools in Upper Assam. The revival of the Tai language, both
spoken and written, and the promotion of Tai culture has been going on
forcefully in the Upper Assam area. The spearhead of this movement is the
'Eastern Tai Literary Association' (Ban Ok Pup Lik Muang Tai). The
Association arranges cultural meetings, researches and publishes books. Its aim
is to establish the Upper Assam area as an Ahom state, separate from Assam,
within the federation of India.3 Research on Tai history and culture in Assam
has significance beyond its academic role. It contributes to the foundations of a
new Tai nation in India on an age-old heritage.

II. The state of knowledge of Ahom history at present: the English

and Assamese schools.
Knowledge of Ahom history has come mostly from works by the British and the
Assamese. These works have the following characteristics:
1. They consider Ahom history as only a part or a period of the history of Assam.
2. They utilize Assamese, Persian and English documents as source materials.
3. They consider Assam to be within the culture area of India. They see only the
dominance of the Hindu religion especially that of the Vaisnavite school.
In brief, they tend to view Ahom history as a part of Indian history especially in
terms of culture, religion and language.
3

From interviews with members of the Ban Ok Pup Lik Muang Tai Association.

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The first and the most classical work on the history of Assam is Sir Edward Gait
(1863-1950)'s A History of Assam4, published in 1905. Gait was an Englishman,
holding the position of honorary director of the ethnographical works of Assam.
He divided his book into 18 chapters, chapters 1-4 on the pre-Ahom history of
Assam, chapters 5-9 on Assam under the Ahom, chapters 10-13 on other
kingdoms in the hill areas on the border of Assam, and chapters 14-18 on the
history of Assam from the Burmese conquest to British rule. Gait considered
Ahom history a period in Assam history, spanning from 1228 when Sukapha
(reigned 1228-68) led Tai soldiers from Muang Mao to settle in the Brahmaputra
valley, to 1826 when Assam came under British rule. Even though Gait had no
other historical studies to draw on, his book was remarkably thorough and
mature. For primary sources, he utilized mainly Assamese chronicles,
supplemented by Persian documents from the Mogul dynasty which fought
against the Ahom, and by English documents of the Fast India Company. In
particular, Gait used the Ahom Buranji chronicle in the Tai language, which he
had translated by a team of learned Ahom priests.
Gait gave weight to the role of the Ahom in the history of Assam. He pointed out
that the Ahom unified the Brahmaputra valley under one single administration, a
situation never before achieved. The Ahom also were successful in defending
their country against the Mogul. They stopped the Mogul from conquering further
to the East. However, Gait's primary objective was to write a history of the land
of Assam, not a history of the Tai Ahom. Therefore he started the book by
recounting the influence of Brahmanism and Aryan culture in the land of Assam
before the advent of the Ahom. He then went on to narrate the interaction of
various ethnic groups after the arrival of the Ahom, the domination of Hindu
culture and the Sanskrit-based Assamese language from the 16th century
onwards, and finally the establishment of British rule in the 19th century. All
these periods form one historical sequence.
After the work of Sir Edward Gait, the most important research work on the
history of Assam belongs to Professor Suryya Kumar Bhuyan (1894-1964) of
Cotton College, Guwahati. He was a founder of the Department of Historical and
Antiquarian Studies (DHAS). He was moving force behind the work of this
department in the collection of historical chronicles. He became the directorgeneral of the department in 1933 and remained in this position until 1957 except
for a period when he was on study leave at the School of Oriental and African
Studle in London. In England, Professor Bhuyan studied the documents on
Assam kept at the India Office Library, and wrote a thesis under the supervision
of Professor H. H. Dodwell.
4

Sir Edward Gait. A History of Assam.

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Professor Bhuyan wrote in total 40 works including histories and edited

collections of chronicles in English and Assamese.5 His important works in
English were his thesis Anglo-Assamese Relations 1771-1826 (1947)6, Lachit
Barphukan and His Times (1947)7, Studies in the Literature of Assam (1955)8,
Atan Buragohain and His Times (1957)9, and Studies in the History of Assam
(1965)10. He also translated the Tungkhlungia Buranji11, an Assamese chronicle
on the 1681-1826 period when Assam was under the last Ahom dynasty named
Tungkhungia. The translation (from Assamese to English) was first published in
1933.
Bhuyan's works in Assamese were also very valuable. They included editions of
the Assam Buranji, a collection of chronicles in the Assamese language; the
Deodhai Asam Buranji, a chronicle of Assam under the early period of Ahom
rule; chronicles of the lands on the border of Assam including the Kachari
Buranji, the Jayantia Buranji, and the Tripura Buranji; and the Kamrupar Buranji
which narrated the wars between Assam and the Mogul. Professor Bhuyan has
given us a detailed account of events in the Ahom kingdom, especially of politics
at the end of the 17th century. In this period of crisis, there were struggles for
state power among various groups of officials, several kings were dethroned, and
the Mogul armies were on the attack. Professor Bhuyan showed that the Ahom
were excellent fighters. He also showed that Ahom officials were prone to
quarrel seriously among themselves. They executed their fellow Ahom opponents
and their families mercilessly. Bhuyan used the wealth of detail in the Assamese
chronicles to bring Ahom history to life. At the same time, his works had a strong
academic foundation in primary sources.
Bhuyan believed that Assam had been an inseparable, organic part of India since
antiquity. Assam was a case study of Hinduization - the process whereby the
cultures of indigenous peoples gradually yielded place to Hindu culture. Ahom
kings supported Hindu priests, built temples, and allocated land to the temples.

Maheswar Neog. Foreword. in: Suryya Kumar Bhuyan. Studies in the History of Assam. 2nd edition,
Gauhati: Omsons Publications 1985; S. K. Bhuyan. Preface. in: S. K. Bhuyan. Anglo-Assamese
Relations, 1771-1826. Gauhati: Lawyer's Book Stall 1974.
6
S. K. Bhuyan. Anglo-Assamese Relations, 1771-1826.
7
S. K. Bhuyan. Lachit Barphukan and His Times. Gauhati 1947.
8
S. K. Bhuyan. Studies in the Literature of Assam. Gauhati: Omsons Publications, reprint, 1985.
9
S. K. Bhuyan. Atan Buragohain and His Times. 2nd edition, Gauhati: Lawyer's Book Stall 1992.
Tungkhungia Buranji or A History of Assam, 1687-1826 A.D. Compiled, edited, and translated by S. K.
Bhuyan, Guwahati: Department of Historical and Antiquarian Studies 1990.
10
S. K. Bhuyan. Studies in the History of Assam.
11
Tungkhungia Buranji or A History of Assam, 1687-1826 A.D. Compiled, edited and translated by S. K.
Bhuyan. Guwahati: Department of Historical and Antiquarian Studies 1990.

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The Brahmins returned these favours by attributing the dynasties a descent from
the Hindu gods.12
Therefore, even though Bhuyan studied the events of the Ahom court in detail, he
did not write Ahom history from the angle of an Ahom consciousness. Rather he
wrote a history of Assam during the time it was ruled by the Ahom. And in his
opinion, Assam during that time had already come under the domination of Hindu
culture.
The most major work on the history of Assam is the 5-volume set The
Comprehensive History of Assam (1990, 19911 19929 1993, 1994)13. This work
also treats Ahom history as simply a period in the history of Assam. The editor of
the set is Professor H. K. Barpujari. The contributors include dozens of leading
scholars of India. Only two of them are Tai Ahom, namely Professor Jogendra
Nath Phukan and Dr Romesh C. Buragohain.
Compared to the works of Gait and Bhuyan, the Comprehensive History gives
relatively little weight to the role of the Ahom. Two of the five volumes are
devoted entirely to the period of British rule. The second volume on political
history of Assam under Ahom rule gives too much coverage to the Ahom-Mogul
wars. The third volume on the administration, ecology, society and culture of
Assam under the Ahom, is the most disappointing of all. It makes very little use
of Tai Ahom documents. It considers only the Hindu part of Assam. It has been
written from the Indian viewpoint, not from the Tai perspective.
Besides the major works of Gait, Bhuyan and Barpujari, there are other general
works in this Assamese school of history, such as N. N. Acharyya: The History of
Medieval Assam (1966)14, N. K. Basu: Assam in the Ahom Age, 1228-1826
(1970)15, Sarbeswar Rajguru: Medieval Assamese Society, 1228-1826 (1988)16,
Debabrate Dutta: History of Assam (1989)17 and other specialized works such as
Lakshmi Devi: Ahom-Tribal Relations (1968)18, H. K. Barpujari: Assam in the
Days of the Company, 1826-1858 (1980)19, and Ramesh Chandra Kalita: Assam
in the Eighteenth Century (1992)20.

12

S. K. Bhuyan. Indian History Congress. in: S. K. Bhuyan. Studies in the Literature of Assam.; S. K.
Bhuyan. Assam Through the Ages. in: S. K. Bhuyan. Studies in the History of Assam.
13
H. K. Barpujari (ed.). The Comprehensive History of Assam. Vols. I-V, Guwahati: Publication Board
Assam 1990, 1991, 1992, 1993, 1994.
14
N. N. Acharyya. The History of Medieval Assam. Gauhati: Omsons Publications, reprint, 1984.
15
N. K. Basu. Assam in the Ahom Age, 1228-1826. Calcutta, Pustak Bhandar 1970.
16
Sarbeswar Rajguru. Medieval Assamese Society, 1228-1826. Nagaon, Assam: Asami 1988.
17
Debabrate Dutta. History of Assam. revised 4th edition, Calcutta: Sribhumi Publishing Company 1989.
18
Lakshmi Devi. Ahom-Tribal Relations. 2nd edition, Guwahati: Lawyer's Book Stall 1992.
19
H. K. Barpujari. Assam in the Days of the Company, 1826-1858. 2nd edition, Guwahati: Spectrum
Publications 1980.
20
Ramesh Chandra Kalita. Assam in the Eighteenth Century. New Delhi: Ornsons Publications 1992.

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Most of the existing Ahom history relies for its source materials on the Buranji
(chronicles) written in the Assamese language. The tradition of recording
historical events is a special characteristic of the Tai people. They differ in this
respect from the other peoples of India, most of whom have never recorded their
histories.21 The chronicles of Assam were originally all written in the Tai
language.
But from the 16th century onwards, they were written in Assamese. (Some were
still written in the Ahom language until the end of the Ahom kingdom in Upper
Assam in 1838.) Assamese was originally the local language of the Brahmins
who taught Hinduism in Assam. The language was rooted in Sanskrit, and
developed in the process of the spread of Vaisnavism to be an indigenous
language of Assam. Forty-four manuscripts of the Assamese Buranjis have been
kept at the Department of Historical and Antiquarian Studies of the state of
Assam. They were written by officials and scrutinized by the state. Most of them
were short notes on political events of each reign, especially on successions and
wars. Very little space was given to economy and culture.22 The Assamese
Buranjis do not reflect Tai thinking because they were written in Assamese, the
language of the Hindu religion of Assam.
Another major source for these histories are Persian documents on Assam dealing
with the wars between the Ahom Kingdom and the Mogul empire in the 16th17th centuries. The wars lasted for 150 years, and yet the Moguls were not able to
overrun Assam. The most imnportant Persian document was Fathiya-I-Ibiriyah
written by Shibabuddin Talish, a historian who accompanied the Mogul army.
He recorded the lives of the Ahom in 1660 AD in detail: "...The Ahom cultivated
rice. Their country was not open. There were no markets. The kings adhered to

21

22

S. K. Bhuyan. Assamese Historical Literature. in S. K. Bhuyan. Studies in the Literature of Assam.

Bhuyan referred to Sir George Abraham Grierson in Linguistic Survey of India. (Vol. I, Part 1,
Introductory, p. 156) who said that the Ahom were proud of their tradition of history writing, which
was generally lacking in India. See also Sir George Abraham Grierson. Tai Group. in Linguistic
Survey of India.; reprinted in Tai Language and Ahom-Assamese-English Dictionary. Delhi: Ajanta
Prakashan, n.d.; p. 4.
Sir George Abraham Griersom said that 'The Ahoms have left at least two important legacies to
Assam: the sense of the importance of history, and the system of administration.' See a similar
judgement by S. K. Bhuyan in his article already mentioned in this footnote in Studies in the Literature
of Assam., p. 33, and the explanation of Maheswar Neog in 'Foreword.' of Lila Gogoi. The Buranjis.
Historical Literature of Assam. Guwahati: Omsons Publications 1986. Praphulladatta Goswami. Assam's
Cultural Role in the Context of India. in: B. Datta Ray (ed.). Social and Economic Profile of North-East
India. Delhi: B. R. Publishing Corporation 1978.
S. L. Baruah. A Comprehensive History of Assam. New Delhi: Munshiram Manoharlal Publishers
1985, p. 44; B. B. Hazarika. The D. H. A. S.: An Appraisal of its Activities. in: B. B. Hazarika (ed.),
Souvenir. Golden Jubilee Celebration (1928-1978), Gauhati: Department of Historical and
Antiquarian Studies 1978-1979.

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Hinduism, but the people were not strong believers in any particular religion.
They were competent warriors. They were good wood carvers."23
These histories also rely on English documents. The East India Company records,
dealing with the relations between Assam and Bengal in the latter period of the
Ahom kingdom, are kept at the India Office Library, London. The Government of
India documents for the period up to 1873 are held at the National Archives in
Calcutta, while those for later periods are deposited at the Indian National
Archives in New Delhi.24 John Peter Wade, a medical doctor who accompanied
an English expeditionary force, wrote An Account of Assam (1784-1800)25 giving
a picture of Ahom rule from direct experiences. Francis Buchanan-Hamilton
wrote An Account of Assam26 recording the socio-economic picture of Assam in
the beginning of the 19th century. Buchanan-Hamilton had no direct experience
of Assam but based his work on the accounts of Assamese people who fled to
Bengal.
The place for research into the history of Assam is the Department of Historical
and Antiquarian Studies of the state of Assam (DHAS). The Department is
located at the Panbazar market in the centre of Guwahati. It was established in
1928. The atmosphere of the Department is not Tai. In the past all the directors of
the Department with the exception of Dr Lila Gogoi, were Assamese. The best
books for guiding research into the primary sources of a history of Assam are Lila
Gogoi: The Buranjis, Historical Literature of Assam (1986)27 and Souvenir:
Golden Jubilee Celebration (1928-1978)28 which commemorates the 50th
anniversary of the DHAS.
The current state of knowledge of the Ahom, as it emerges from these major
historical works, may be summarized as follows. The Ahom society and culture
were Asiatic. Its economy was self-subsistence, based on rice production. The
state was already in existence, claiming to be the sole owner of the land. The
people called paik had to contribute corve labour to the state for three months in
a year. The state did not manage affairs inside the village. The state allotted land
to officials, but the land reverted back to the state when the officials retired.
Each paik received approximately three acres of land to cultivate without having
to pay taxes. The corve labour was already considered as a tax. There were also
23

Jadunath Sarkar. Assam and the Ahom in 1660 A.D.; in Journal of the Bihar and Orissa Research
Society. Vol. 1, 1915, pp. 179-195.
24
S. L. Baruah. A Comprehensive History of Assam. p. 52.
25
J. P. Wade. An Account of Assam. ed. Benudhar Sarma, Sibsagar 1927.
26
Francis Hamilton. An Account of Assam. (ed. S. K. Bhuyan). Gauhati: Department of Historical and
Antiquarian Studies 1963.
27
Lila Gogoi, 7he Buranjis, Historical Literature of Assam.
28
B. B. Hazarika (ed.), Souvenir. Golden Jubilee Celebration.

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slaves, who were mainly prisoners of war or captured hill tribesmen. The Ahom
worshipped the spirits of the ancestors and the spirits of nature such as the sky,
the mountain, the river, the wind and the rain. They believed that the spirits of
people who had just died stayed on in their houses to protect their offspring. The
spirits of those who had died a long time ago returned to the sky.
These findings suggest that the ancient Tai society was an Asiatic type and that
the ancient Tai culture revolved around worship of nature and ancestors.
However, the general histories of Assam point out that in Assam before the
entrance of the Tai Ahom at the beginning of the 13th century, Aryan culture was
already established, especially the Sakta doctrine which taught that power in this
universe came from women particularly the goddess Kali (or Parvati). The
followers of this doctrine performed their rituals by killing animals and human
beings as offerings to the goddess Kali at the Kamakhya temple on Nilachala
mountain near Guwahati. The Kamakhya temple had been a sacred place for a
very long time. Five hundred years before the in-migration of the Ahom, there
was a kingdom named Kamarupa in the land which later became Assam. When
the Ahom extended their power from Upper Assam to Lower Assam, the Ahom
accepted this Sakta doctrine and later the Neo-Vaisnavite doctrine of Hinduism.
The Ahom began to lose their religion and their former language in the 15th
century. They turned to worship the gods of the Hindu religion instead of their
ancestral spirits. They used the Assamese language instead of the Tai language.
The Asiatic system of the econorny and society continued until the period of
British rule. Then taxes replaced corve labour, the economy was opened to
trade, and tea was planted in Assam for export.
In sum, mainstream Assam history argues that the Tai Ahom culture became
'Assamese' through the processes of Sanskritization and Hinduization. The
process was peaceful and progressed with the consent of the Ahom who were
being absorbed. Professor Maheswar Neog, a past president of the Assam
Literary Association (Asam Sahitya Sabha), made a speech at the annual meeting
of the association in 1974 saying that:
1) Assam was not an original settlement of any particular tribe. Assamese
culture was a blend of the cultures of many tribes, including the Ahom. Any
attempt to separate the Ahom from the Assamese was a fantasy. Assamese
culture had already absorbed Ahom culture.
2) The Ahom were able to rule their kingdom for 600 years precisely because
they had given up their language and their way of life. They freely and
voluntarily adopted the language and religion which all the other tribes in the
area could accept. Therefore, the process of losing their former religion and
language was a natural process, which took place especially in Lower Assam
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where the Ahom extended their rule over a society in which Hindu culture was
already established.29
The line of thinking underlying Maheswar Neog's interpretation has become the
dominant view of Assam history. Therefore the Tai people, the Tai culture and
the Tai language are not considered central to the history of Assam. The central
pole of the history of Assam is the Aryan, Hindu culture and the Sanskrit
language. The history of Assam tells of the emergence of a distinct centre of this
culture in the northeast region of India. Even the period of the British rule is a
short period, brought to an end by the triumph of Indian nationalism.
Works on cultural and religious history conspicuously emphasize the influence of
the Hindu religion in Assam. The readers are made to believe that the Ahom, the
Tai culture, language and religion have all been totally absorbed. There is no Tai
consciousness left. There are no other beliefs or rituals except Hinduism.
We can cite, for example, the works of Prof. Satyendranath Sarma: A SocioEconomic and Cultural History of Medieval Assam (1200-1800 AD) (1989)30 and
Prof. Maheswar Neog: Early History of the Vaisnava Faith and Movement in
Assam (1965)31. These two works describe the revival of Hindu Vaisnavism by
Sankaradeva in Assam in the 15th century. Sankaradeva (1449-1569) taught the
people to worship only Visnu (incarnated as Krishna) by chanting, singing and
calling the name of Visnu with loyalty. There was no need to sacrifice animals.
Neo-Vaisnavism was a religion of the masses. All believers had the opportunity
to reach salvation, irrespective of tribe or caste. Ordinary people had the
opportunity to read religious texts in Assamese, not in Sanskrit. Sankaradeva and
his disciples wrote songs, plays and prayers. They established temples (Sattra)
with large prayer halls (Namaghar) in various villages. This school of Hinduism
was able to reach the villagers through literature, dances, drama, music, and
painting, which were used as media of propagating this doctrine. NeoVaisnavism was the means for the Assamese culture and religion to spread to
everyone and to every corner of the Ahom kingdom, especially the plain areas of
Assam. Those as the Ahom, who had not previously been Hindu, now turned to
Hinduism. The many Hindu-Assamese architectural structures and literary works
which survive until today are the evidence for this process.
One Dutch Historian, Professor Barend J. Terwiel of Hamburg University, is
deeply interested in Ahom culture. He wrote a two-volume work on The Tai of
29

Chatthip Nartsupha, Ranoo Wichasin, Renoo Artharnes, Norignutch Chandrabhai. Mung-nun-sun-kham

[in Thai]. Bangkok: Sangsan 1991.
30
Satyendranath Sarma. A Socio-Economic and Cultural History of Medieval Assam (1200-1800 A.D.).
Guwahati: Pratima Devi 1989.
31
Maheswar Neog. Early History of the Vaisnava Faith and Movement in Assam. Delhi: Motilal
Banarsidass, reprint, 1985.

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Assam (1972, 198l)32; an article 'Ahom and the Study of Early Tai Society',
submitted to the second Thai-European seminar at Saarbrcken on June 14-18,
1982; an article 'The Origin of Mankind in Ahom Literature', submitted to a
research seminar on the culture of the Tai-speaking people held at Chiangmai
University on December 7-8, 1991; an article 'Reading a Dead Language: TaiAhom And the Dictionaries', published in the journal Souvenir (1990)33 of the
Ban Ok Pub Lik Muang Tai; and a book with Ranoo Wichasin: Tai Ahoms and
the Stars (1992)34.
Professor Terwiel can read the Ahom language and hence his works go deep into
the belief and magic of the Ahom. The other important difference between the
works of Professor Terwiel and those of other scholars of Assamese history is
that Assamese scholars study Tai Ahom separate from other Tai groups, while
Professor Terwiel clearly gives attention to the link among the various Tai
groups. But Professor Terwiel agrees with the Assamese scholars that the
language, culture, and religion of the Ahom are dead. He comments that recent
academic works which attempt to show the common root between Ahom culture
and Thailand culture are rather superficial.35
Professor Terwiel studies Ahom culture and language rather as a remnant from
the past of an extinct nation, not as the historical momentum of a nation from the
past to the present and on to the future. In this regard we can classify him in the
same group as the Assamese historians who study Ahom history only as a period
of a history of Assam.

III. The state of knowledge of Ahom history at present: the Tai school.
A group of Tai Ahom historians have studied Ahom history with an approach
opposite to the English and the Assamese school. They study Ahom history
separate from the history of Assam and the history of India. They see the Tai
culture and language as distinct from the Hindu culture and Assamese language.
These Tai Ahom historians are few in number. Their viewpoint is in the minority.
A small number of Thailand's historians and linguists support the work of
independent Tai Allom historians. They would like to link Ahom study to other
Tai studies.

32

Barend J. Terwiel. The Tai of Assam and their Lifecycle Ceremonies. Part I. Southeast Asian Review.
Vol. IV, No. 1, August 1972; B. J. Terwiel. The Tai of Assam: Sacrifices and Time Reckoning.
Southeast Asian Review. Vol. VI, No. 1-2, January/December, 1981.
33
B. J. Terwiel. Reading a Dead Language: Tai-Ahom and the Dictionaries. Souvenir (Guwahati: Ban Ok
Pub Lik Mioung Tai 1990).
34
B. J. Terwiel and Ranoo Wichasin (translated and edited). Tai Ahoms and the Stars. (New York:
Southeast Asia Program, 1992).
35
B. J. Terwiel and Ranoo Wichasin. Tai Ahoms and the Stars., p. 5.

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This group of Tai Ahom historians have interests in the fields of religion, ritual,
language, culture and politics. Dr Padmeswar Gogoi (1907-1979), a reader at
Guwahati University, wrote Tai-Ahom Religion and Customs (1976)36, showing
that the Ahom had their own religion and their own rituals. Their objects of
worship included: chum-fa-rung-sang-muang, a sacred idol of the Ahom nation;
om fa meaning the sky; and many other spirits including lengdon. The forms of
worship performed by the Ahom priests included animal sacrifice, and the calling
of life essence. The Ahom had their own special ceremonies such as the cak-lang
marriage ritual. In the cak-lang ceremony Ahom history from the Buranji was
recited in the Ahom language, along with the family histories of the marrying
couple. After the recital of the histories, the bride placed the hangdang sword of
the Ahom in the two hands of the bridegroom. The bridegroom declared that he
would follow the ideal of the ancestors and would protect the land with all his
strength.37 In addition, Padmeswar Gogoi mentioned that the burial custom and
the offering ceremony to the ancestral spirits are still observed until today by the
priest class and the Cao-dang family of executioners and guardians of the capital
Garhgaon.38 Padmeswar Gogoi wrote another book The Tai and Tai Kingdoms:
With a Fuller Treatment of the Tai-Ahom Kingdom in the Brahmaputra Valley
(1968)39 which was the first book to examine Ahom history as a part of the
history of the Tai nation and its various kingdoms. Padmeswar Gogoi was
courageous as the academic circle of Assam had been dominated by the Hindu
Brahmins. Also in the field of ritual study, another Ahom scholar, Prof. Jogendra
Nath Phukan, of the Department of History, Guwahati University, wrote articles
on 'The Meaning and Significance of the Title Chao-pha (Svargadeva)' (1978)40
and 'Francis Buchanan's Description of the Ahom Coronation: Reconsidered'
(1983)41. This coronation ceremony was an old ceremony. The king was dressed
in full attire, with the chum divine image hung from his neck. He was seated on
the upper story of a raised wooden house. He took a bath (ab-nam)42 An Ahom

36

Padmeswar Gogoi. Tai-Ahom Religion and Customs. (Gauhati: Publication Board, Assam 1976).
Lila Gogoi. Bu-Ran-Ji. in Romesh Buragohain (ed.). The Lost Trails. A Study on the Tai Peoples of
Northeast India. Vol. I (Dhemaji, Assam: Ban Ok Pub Lik Mioung Tai 1994), p. 5; Padmeswar Gogoi.
Tai-Ahom Religion and Customs. pp. 63-87.
38
Padmeswar Gogoi. Tai-Ahom Religion and Customs. p. 88.
39
Padmeswar Gogoi. The Tai and the Tai Kingdoms. With a Fuller Treatment of the Tai-Ahom Kingdom
in Brahmaputra Valley. (Gauhati: Gauhati University, Department of Publication 1968).
40
Jogendra Nath Phukan. The Meaning and Significance of the Title Chao-Pha (Svagadeva). Bulletin of
the Assam State Museum, No. III, 1978.
41
J. N. Phukan. Francis Buchanan's Description of the Ahom Coronation: Reconsidered. in Krishna Kanta
Hangui Felicitation Volume. August, 1983.
42
An Ahom Buranji manuscript kept at the Department of Historical and Antiquarian Studies, Guwahati
(hereinafter DHAS).
37

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priest cited a sacred prayer and gave a name to the new king. The king made
sacrifices to the spirits. This ceremony was recorded in the Ahom Buranji.43
In addition, Prof. Phukan wrote his Ph.D. thesis submitted to Guwahati
University titled 'The Economic History of Assam Under the Ahoms' (1973).44
He mentioned that the settlement of the Ahom transformed the river valley of the
Brahmaputra from swamps into rice fields with irrigation. This was a great
economic transformation, a significant contribution of the Ahom to the entire
population of Assam.45 In the past, Prof. Phukan was a prominent leader of the
Ahom cultural revival movement. He was the secretary of the Tai Historical and
Cultural Society of Assam.
In this realm of religion and ritual the most important intellectual of the revival
movement of the Ahom at present is Chao Nagen Hazarika. He wrote a short
article 'The Ahom Philosophy of God' (not dated)46 arguing that the Ahom have
their own god, and their own religious text called lit-lai-peyn-ka-ka which is the
very beginning of the Ahom Buranji. In addition he wrote a book in Assamese,
Chakari Pheti Buranji (Cobra History) (1990)47, which sold more than 5,000
copies. In this book Hazarika narrated the history of the downfall of the Ahom
and attributed the downfall to the Ahoms' acceptance of the Hindu religion. He
claimed that Assamese culture was Ahom culture. He asked all the Ahom to give
up Hinduism and to return to the former Ahom religion which was the worship of
the sky. He called this Ahom religion Phuralung.
Hazarika not only wrote books, but also performed old Ahom rituals himself,
including cow sacrifice which was strongly prohibited by Vaisnavite Hinduism.
Because of his prominent role in religious revival and because of his daring
writings, Hazarika has been threatened with assassination many times.
In the field of language and culture the work of Chao Amyakhen Gohain, head of
the Tai diploma program at Dibrugarh University, is very interesting. He wrote
'Issues in Tai Language', printed in The Lost Trails, A Study on the Tai Peoples of
Northeast India (1994)48. He argued that the Ahom had maintained relations with
the Tai in Burma through the first 300 years of their settlement, and hence the Tai
43

The manuscript mentioned in footnote 42.

J. N. Phukan. The Economic History of Assam Under the Ahoms. Ph.D. thesis, Gauhati University 1973.
45
J. N. Phukan. The Economic History of Assam Under the Ahoms. pp. 198-200.
46
Nagen Hazarika. The Ahom Philosophy of God., n.d.
47
Nagen Hazarika. Chakari Pheti Buranji (Cobra History), 3rd edition (Guwahati: Chukafa Research
Centre, 1993). Chao Nagen Hazarika (*1943) is an important member of the Board of Executives of
the Ban Ok Pup Lik Muang Tai Association. He is an ideologist of the movement for Tai cultural
revival. He proposed the motto of the Ahom: 'We revive, we survive'. At present he is a civil servant of
the state of Assam, responsible for district administration. His life history can be read in Chow Bharat
Konwar (ed.). The Golden Moment, a Souvenir Published on the Occasion of Celebrating the Golden
Jubilee of Chow Nagen Hazarika's Birth. (Sibsagar, Assam: Nang Usha Buragohain 1993).
48
Chao Amyakhen Gohain. Issues in Tai Language. in Romesh Buragohain (ed.). The Lost Trails. Vol. I,
pp. 14-23.
44

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language had flourished in the Ahom kingdom during that period. When Sukapha
(reigned 1228-1268) took his army into Assam, he found Tai who had been living
there already. The Ahom Buranji called them 'those who were already there' (phukow-an-kao). In the reign of Sukapha there was an exchange of envoys between
Muang-nun-sun-kham (Assam) and Muang Mao. In 1382 Sudangpha (reigned
1397-1407) recorded that it had been already eight years since his kingdom
exchanged envoys with Muang Mao. The implication was that during the 140
years between these two reigns there was continuing contact between these two
Tai kingdoms. Suhungmung (reigned 1497-1539) and Sukhampha (reigned 15521603) both married Tai wives from Muang Mogaung. As a result, more Tai from
Mogaung migrated to live in Muang-nun-sun-kham. But after 1638 Muang
Mogaung came under the rule of Burma and there was a civil war in the Ahom
kingdom. The Ahom priests lost their power in the court. The Tai language
started to be neglected. During the latter part of the 18th century the Tai Khamti,
Phake, Khamyang, Aiton and Turung migrated from Burma to settle in Assam.
They brought both the Tai language and the Buddhist religion into Assam. These
latter groups of people have preserved the Tai language until today. Moreover,
they are still in contact with the Tai in Burma. For example a Tai priest from
Burma, U Kandama Mahasthavir, came to teach the Tai language and Buddhism
in Assam from 1883 to 1934. His remains are still kept at Nam Phake village in
Dibrugarh district until today. It was unfortunate that in the eightteenth century
the Ahom were not very eager to contact these late migrant groups of Tai people
to revive their language and culture. Before the Second World War these groups
probably totalled several hundred thousand people.
Among the Ahom the priest class moo has made the greatest effort and has played
the most important role in the preservation of the Tai language, culture, and
historical consciousness. Until the kingdom was lost to Britain completely in
1838, they wrote the Ahom Buranji in the Tai language. They tried to preserve
Tai customs like the coronation het-chao-nang-muang49, the calling of life
essence rikkawan, examination of the legs of the fowl tang-kai-do, do-duk-kai,
tang-ta-kai-do50, the marriage ceremony plong-chu-plong-sao51 and spirit
sacrifice khaek-phi, me-dum-me-phi, me-phi-me-sang52. Once during the reign of
Suyeopha or Lakshmi Singh (reigned 1769-1780) there was a quarrel between the
Ahom priests and the Hindu Brahmins on the question of whether one should
49

Ahom Buranji, a manuscript photographed from Ban Khao Taek village, Sibsagar district, Assam, p. 27
g, no. 9 (27g/9) (hereinafter referenced as Ahom Buranji (KT)).
50
Ahom Buranji (KT) 18 g/1; Rai Sahib Golap Chandra Barua, translated and edited, Ahom Buranji From
the Earliest Time to the End of Ahom Rule. (Calcutta: Baptist Mission Press, 1930), (hereinafter
referenced as Ahom Buranji), p. 370; Ahom Buranji (KT) 40 g/8.
51
Ahom Buranji, pp. 290, 387.
52
Ahom Buranji (KT) 56k/4 25k/4 13k/9.

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bury or cremate the former king. The Ahom priests insisted on burial as practised
in the past. Suyeopha had to yield to the advice of the Ahom priests. An effigy of
the former king was made to be buried.
Even though the spoken and written language of the Ahom became Assamese,
the priests and the common Ahom people continued to use the Tai language in
the prayers of various rituals until today.53 Professor Normal Chandra Gogoi of
Tinsukia College has collected these Ahom mantra along with English
translations in Tai Ahom Mantra (1994, not yet distributed).54 These prayers are
recited during the offerings to the spirits of the fire, earth, wind, sky, ruling
princes in the past, deceased kings, and so on. The prayers invite the spirits,
which may have wandered elsewhere, to come to the place of worship. They give
details of the offerings including sacrificial animals, raw or cooked meat, rice,
vegetables, fruit, milk, honey, ginger and salt. In addition, the priests also prepare
clothing for the spirits. They tell the spirits to take a bath and rub themselves
clean. The spirits are then dressed in beautiful clothing. After that the priests will
ask the spirits to protect their descendants who comne to rule in this part of the
world. The priests will ask for longevity, lives free of disease, security and
prosperity for the kingdom. All these requests are made in the Tai language.
It is this priestly class which has consciously preserved and handed down over
generations the Ahom language and customs. Though they became poor after the
kingdom was lost to the British, they continued to fulfil their responsibility as the
intellectuals of a nation. They were the initiators and supporters of the Ahom
cultural revival movement. They established the Tai language school at the
Patsako village, Sibsagar district. In 1955 when Dr Banchob Pantumetha visited
this village, the school had been abandoned.55 Subsequently the priestly class led
by the high priest, Dambarudhar Deodhai Phukan (1912-1993) of Patsako,
proposed the establishment of an Ahom cultural revival society. The Ban Ok Pup
Lik Muang Tai (the Eastern Tai Literary Association) was founded at Dhemaji on
53

Ahom Buranji. p. 325. Sir George Abraham Grierson stated that the Assamese language replaced the
Ahom language at the beginning of the 18th century. About 1720 it was no longer necessary for Hindu
office-seekers to learn the Ahom language. Sir George Abraham Grierson said: 'It probably remained
the spoken language of the Ahoms themselves until towards the end of the eighteenth century, and of
the Deodhais for about fifty years longer.' S. K. Bhuyan wrote in 1930 that Rai Sahib Golapchandra
Barua was the only man then living who had a scientific knowledge of the language, and there was no
immediate likelihood of a successor stepping into his place. S. K. Bhuyan predicted that within another
20 years (that is by 1950) at the latest no man would be found who knew the Ahom language, and the
manuscripts written in the language of the old rulers of Assam would become like hieroglyphics
beyond decipherment by any future antiquarian and linguist. Sir George Abraham Grierson. Tai
Group. in Linguistic Survey of India, reprinted in Tai Language and Ahom-Assamese-English
Dictionary. p. 5; S. K. Bhuyan. Assamese Manuscripts. in S. K. Bhuyan. Studies in the Literature of
Assam. p. 58.
54
Nomal Chandra Gogoi. Tai Ahom Mantra. Mimeograph, 1994.
55
Banchob Pantumetha. Kale mantai. Bangkok: The Pen Association 2504, p. 31.

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April 8, 1981.56 The Association revived the activities of the Tai language
schools at Patsako and 350 other villages in all areas of Upper Assam. The
Association pressured the government of Assam to teach the Tai language at
primary school level. In 1993, the government hired 200 Tai language teachers.
At Dhemaji there is an Ahom intellectual Sudoifa Thaomnuang (Nagen
Bargohain) who has written a very good textbook of the Ahom language, which
has been officially adopted for use in schools.
The Ban Ok Pup Lik Muang Tai holds a cultural gathering almost every year.
About 100,000 Tai from all groups in Assam participate. The 11th gathering was
held at the village of Namrup in February 1994. The Association regularly issues
books and pamphlets on culture and academic matters. An important work in
English issued by the Association is The Lost Trails. A Study on the Tai Peoples
of Northeast India (1994), edited by Dr Romesh Buragohain. This book is the
first collection of articles which view Ahom history from the Ahom standpoint.
The Association organized an academic seminar on 'The Tai of Northeast India'
at Sibsagar on February 6-9, 1995. The long-term objective of the Association is
to re-create the state of Tai Ahom or Muang-nun-sun-kham within the federation
of India. The Ahom state will have a close cultural relationship with the Kingdom
of Thailand and other Tai states, especially the Shan states and the Dehong
province of Yunnan. The Ban Ok Pup Lik Muang Tai has its headquarters at
Dhemaji. Its secretary-general and one of the founders, Professor Chao Puspa
Gogoi, is most able.
Two particular historians deserve mention for their independent writings and
distinctly Ahom standpoint. Mrs Swarna Lata Baruah of the Department of
History, Dibrugarh University, Upper Assam, wrote A Comprehensive History of
Assam (1985)57, showing that the Ahom have their own cultural identity. She
wrote clearly and comprehensively using a Marxist approach. Dr Romesh
Buragohain, professor of history at Lunglei College, Mizoram, edited the book
The Lost Trails (1994) already mentioned. He also proposed a theory of Ahom
state formation in the article titled 'Tai-Ahom State Formation: Role of Conquest
and Irrigation in the Origin of the Tai-Ahom State' (not dated)58. In the opinion of
Buragohain, the Ahom kingdom was born out of conquest and the mobilization of
manpower to construct dikes on the Brahmaputra to irrigate the surrounding
valley. The Ahom state was an Asiatic state in line with the theory of Karl
Wittfogel.

56

Chow Nagen Hazarika. Ban Ok Pub Lik Mioung Tai. in The Tai. Vol. 1, pp. 1-7; The Tai. Vol. 1, p. 68.
S. L. Baruah. A Comprehensive History of Assam.
58
Romesh Buragohain. Tai-Ahom State Formation: Role of Conquest and Irrigation in the Origin of the
Tai-Ahom State. n.d.
57

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Other Ahom scholars lean toward Ahom nationalism. Several have written in the
Assamese language. Around 1930, Hiteswar Barbaruah published Ahamor Din
(The Days of the Ahom) on the subject of the Ahom administrative system.
Around 1950, Chao Sarbananda Rajkumar published Itihashe Soaura Chahata
Bachar (Six Hundred Years of Historical Days) on Ahom history. Dr Lila Gogoi
wrote Tai-Samskriti (Tai Culture) on the culture of the Ahom, Khamti, Aiton,
Turung and Kamyang; and Beli Mar Gal (The Sun is Set) on the struggle of the
Ahom against the occupation of the Aryan during the last period of the kingdom.
Dr Aran Baruah wrote Ahomar Sachan Pranali (The Administrative Systems of
the Ahom), and Professor Jatin Bargohain wrote Asoma Artha-Samajik Abostha
(Socio-Economic Conditions of Assam). The latter is a Marxist interpretation of
the social history of the Ahom kingdom.59
Dr Girin Phukan (*1944), a professor of political science at Dibrugarh
University, is an Ahom scholar who can most clearly explain the problems of the
Ahom nation. In the article 'Identifying the Nemesis' printed in the book The Lost
Trials (1994), Dr Girin Phuikan argued that Britain not only destroyed the
administration of the Ahom, but also intended to demolish the Ahom society,
polity and economy. Most importantly, Britain wanted to break the spirit of the
Ahom. The British were afraid that the Ahom who had ruled Assam continuously
for 600 years would revolt against their rule. As a result, the former ruling class
in Assam was wiped out more completely than in other parts of India. The highcaste Assamese Hindus, who had gradually assumed powerful roles in the Ahom
kingdom over the previous three centuries, dealt another blow to the Ahom.
They warmly welcomed the arrival of the British, and cooperated with them to
suppress the Ahom. The British looked on the Ahom as antagonists, and never
appointed them to important positions. The British revoked the corve system
(paik), thus immediately making the official Ahom class poor. The high-caste
Assamese seized the opportunity to assume power and status under British rule.
They derided the Ahom who fell from power. The Ahom were reduced from a
ruling to a backward class. Their contribution to the birth and development of
Assamese society was forgotten.
According to Girin Phukan, the majority of the Ahom came to realize that their
adherence to Hinduism was a fundamental cause of their downfall. The Ahom
increasingly felt conscious of their identity, distinct from the high-caste
Assamese Hindus. The Ahom leaders knew that the problem of Ahom identity
59

Hiteswar Barbarua. Ahamar Din. (Gauhati, 1981); Sarbananda Rajkumar. Itihashe Soaura Chahata
Bachar. (Jorhat, 1980); Lila Gogoi. Tai-Samskriti. (Gauhati, 1981); Lila Gogoi. Beli Mar Gal. 1983;
Chao Puspa Gogoi. Tai Ahom Studies in Assamese Language. Paper presented in the seminar on
Ahom Studies at Silapakorn University, Bangkok, Thailand on 21st August, 1994; Chao Puspa Gogoi.
Tai Studies in Assam. in The Tai. Vol. I, pp. 9-19; Chao Puspa Gogoi. Contribution of Scholars to Tai
Studies in Assamese Language in Assam. Mimeograph, n.d.

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was connected to the question of the autonomy of Assam. They believed that if
Assam had more autonomy, it could stop the influx of the non-Mongolians (i.e.
Aryan Hindus) into Assam. If Assam was more autonomous, the Ahom and other
Mongolians (e.g. the hill tribes in Assam) would become better in status.
Therefore in the 1940's some Ahom leaders cooperated with other Mongolian
tribes in Assam to work for a more independent Assam.60
Through their acceptance of Hinduism, Girin Phukan concluded, the Ahom
common people had allowed themselves to be positioned at the lowest levels of
the caste hierarchy - as outcastes, lower even than the Sutra caste. At the time
when the Ahom were in power, the Brahmins attributed a high status to the Ahom
royal families based on mythical descent from the Hindu gods. Hence the rulers
were blinded to the long-term consequences of adopting Hinduism. In addition,
the Ahom became divided along the lines of Hindu sectarian rifts. This division
was an important cause of a civil war among the Ahom, called the Moamariya
revolt, which lasted intermittently from the middle of the 18th century to the
beginning of the 19th and which made the kingdom weak and vulnerable to
Burmese and British inroads.
Since the 1940s, scholars of Thailand have also taken an interest in the history
and culture of the Tai Ahom. Their works have supported the idea that Ahom
society and culture have their own identity. Thai scholars have argued that Ahom
culture was similar in parts to Thai culture in Thailand.
We can divide Thai scholarly works on Ahom into two groups. The first focuses
on the Ahom language. The second deals with Ahom society and culture. But the
two groups have the same objective. They have studied Ahom in order to
understand ancient Tai society and culture. They want to understand 'the roots of
the language, culture and society of Thailand.
In the field of language, Professor Banchob Pantumetha (1920-1992) was a
pioneer. She wrote Kale mantai (1961)61 which is a travel-cum-linguistics book
about her experiences in Assam in 1955. Professor Banchob saw the value of
Ahom historical documents, but believed "the Ahom language had been
completely dead for a century... No one can understand the Ahom scripts to the
degree that they will become useful for research on language and history... The
documents have value as old materials only... Anyone who wanted to be a
professional in this area, would have to devote at least half of their life to it in
order to be successful..."62

60

Girin Phukan. Identifying the Nemesis. in Romesh Buragohain (ed.). The Lost Trails. pp. 173-7.
Banchob Panthumetha. Kale mantai.
62
Banchob Panthurnetha. Kale mantai. pp. 10-11; 226-31.
61

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Professor Dr Prasert Na Nagara (*1919) fulfilled the wish of Professor Banchob.

He patiently studied the Ahom language by himself until he was able to read
Ahom texts. He compiled the Tai Ahom-Thai dictionary (1991).63 One of his
students, Acarn Ranoo Wichasin, wrote her dissertation on Tai Ahom
Palaeography (1982)64 and has been reading the Ahom Buranji in the original
Tai. A graduate student in the field of Thai inscription at Silpakorn University,
Ranee Lertleumsai, wrote a lengthy article on the 'Myths of the Ahom' (1994).65
She has proposed new readings and interpretations of some Ahom texts. At the
moment she is writing her M.A. dissertation on Ahom myths under the
supervision of Professor Prasert and Acarn Ranoo.
From the time of Professor Banchob until today, the study of Ahom language has
made progress in Thailand. This progress has begun to help the Thai in Thailand
to understand better the meanings of ancient Thai words and concepts. The
advancement of Ahom learning in Thailand may also play a part in reading and
understanding Ahom historical documents, and in reconstructing the
pronunciation of spoken Tai Ahom.
Works in Thailand on Ahom culture and society tend to have a nationalist flavour
and purpose, namely the definition of a greater Tai culture spread over a broad
geographical area. Phraya Anumanrajthon (1888-1969) wrote in Thai The Story
of the Tai Nation (1940).66 In this book he described the origin of the Tai people
based on the opening passages of the Ahom Buranji. Luang Wichit Wathakarn
(1901-1962) published A Research on Tai Nation (1961)67 in Thai, which was in
fact a partial translation of the book by Sir Edward Gait. The best of the early
Thai works on the Ahom was Visiting Tai Ahom, Our Blood Relatives (1954)68 by
Sarnath, the pen-name of Sang Pattanothal (1915-86). Sarnath explained Ahom
history in detail including the administration and culture of the Ahom. Sarnath
made the readers of his book feel that the Ahom were the relatives of the Thai in
Thailand. The Ahom had set up a separate kingdom, and after the kingdom was
lost, had been persecuted by the Hindus and by the British. The Thai in Thailand
should try to help their relatives in Assam, by establishing close relations. Sarnath
said that our people over there 'volunteer to receive the Thai culture of Bangkok...
Blood is thicker than water.'69

63

Prasert Na Nagara (trans.). Tai Ahom-Thai Dictionary. (Bangkok: Si1apakorn University, 2534).
Ranoo Wichasin. Tai Ahom Palaeography. M.A. thesis, Department of Oriental Languages, Graduate
School, Silapakorn University 2529.
65
Ranee Lertleumsai. Myths of the Ahom. A report for the course on Tai scripts outside Thailand. Tai
inscription section, Department of Oriental Languages, Graduate School, Silpakorn University 2537.
66
Phraya Anuman Rajthon. Story of the Tai Nation [in Thai]. (Bangkok: Nonthaburi, 2511).
67
Luang Wichit Wathakarn. Research on the Tai Nation [in Thai]. (Bangkok: the Thai Army, 2513).
68
Sarnath. Visiting Tai Ahom our blood relatives [in Thai]. (Bangkok: Sathirpab, 2497).
69
Sarnath. Visiting Tai Ahom our blood relatives, p.6.
64

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Chit Phumisak (1930-1966) made an important academic proposal: we should

study the archaic characteristics of the Thai by the method of comparative history
of the culture of various groups of Tai people, including the Ahom.70 Chit's view
was different from Dr Banchob's. Although he had not seen the Ahom documents
inscribed on bark, which Dr Banjob had, he believed that it should be possible to
study and understand Ahom written documents. He suggested: 'At some time in
the future, we may be able to obtain Tai Ahom texts... for our study... We will
then find clues... to understand many things that are still unexplainable in
Thailand today!'71
Professor Wilaiwan Kanittanan has utilized this approach of comparative cultural
history to study the concept of khwan (life essence) in the Ahom Buranji. She
wrote an article 'A Linguistic Approach to Kwan: an Ancient Tai Belief' (198l)72
with a very important conclusion: the calling of life essence was a genuinely
ancient Tai ritual. Chatthip Nartsupha, Ranoo Wichasin, Renoo Arthames, and
Nongnutch Chandrabhai also try to study along this line of comparative cultural
history in the articles 'The Beliefs and Rituals of the Tai Ahom: From the
Reading of the Ahom-Buranji in Tai' (1985)73 as well as 'Tai Cultural Revival in
Assam' (1991)74 and in the book Muang-nun-sun-kham (1991)75.
The entry of scholars from Thailand into Ahom studies has helped the Tai school
of Ahom history in at least two ways. In the first place it has given moral support
for cultural struggle. The attempt to connect Tai Ahom culture to the Thai culture
of Thailand is very important for the Ahom people. The culture of Thailand is
living proof of the strength, endurance, modernity and force of Tai culture. The
example of Thailand makes the Ahom people confident that Tai culture can be as
prosperous as Hindu culture. At the same time the Ahom people may be able to
borrow some vital and thriving elements of Thailand's culture to help the Ahom
revival movement and to complement Ahom culture in the realms of knowledge,
language, and custom. The Ahom can study their own history with greater awareness of Ahom identity, with greater confidence, and with greater forcefulness.
The Ahom will understand that their nation and culture have the potential to
70

Chit Phumisak. The Characteristics of Archaic Tai. in Chit Phumisak. Oath-Taking Ceremony and New
Thoughts on Thai History of the Chao Phraya River Valley [in Thai]. (Bangkok: Duangkamon, 2524).
71
Chit Phumisak. Oath-Taking Ceremony. in Chit Phurnisak. Oath-Taking Ceremony and New Thoughts.
72
Wilaiwan Kanittanan. A Linguistic Approach to Kwan, an Ancient Tai Belief. Paper presented to the
Conference on Thai Studies, New Delhi, 24-7 February, 1981.
73
Chatthip Nartsupha and Ranoo Wichasin. The Beliefs and the Rituals of the Tai Ahom: From the
Reading of the Ahom Buranji in Tai. Thammasat Journal. Vol. 14, No. 4, December, 2528. This
article was revised from a paper submitted to a seminar on 'Lanna Studies: History and Archaeology',
28-30 January, 2528.
74
Chatthip Nartsupha and Ranoo Wichasin. Tai Cultural Revival in Assam. Paper presented to a research
seminar on the study of the societies and cultures of Tai speaking people, 7-8 December, 2534 at
Chiangmai University.
75
Chatthip Nartsupha, Ranoo Wichasin, Renoo Arthames, Nongnut Chandrabhai. Muang-nun-sun-kham.

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develop and prosper. The study of Ahom history is not a study of something already dead or dying. It is the study of a nation and culture, undertaken with a
clear objective. Ahom culture is an independent culture with its own direction.
This approach to Ahom history is radically different to the Assamese school
which used to dominate historical study in Assam. The Assamese school made
the people believe that Tai culture was already dead or had lost its dynamism.
That kind of historical study made the Ahom lose heart. They had no will power
to fight back. Hindu culture was thus able to dominate the mind of the Ahom.
The contribution which moral support from Thailand can make to the Ahom
struggle was exemplified in the founding of the Ban Ok Pup Lik Muang Tai on
April 8, 1981. This Association now plays the key role in the Tai cultural revival
in Assam. The founders have stated that they conceived the idea to form the
Association as a direct result of their meeting with Thai scholars from Thailand at
a conference in New Delhi on February 25-27, 1981. By participating in that
meeting, Ahom intellectuals became aware of the identity and importance of the
history and culture of the Ahom. After they returned to Assam they had their own
meeting and resolved to establish the Ban Ok Pup Lik Muang Tai.
Besides providing moral support, the participation of Thai scholars has brought a
new approach into the Ahom history circle. This approach is the intra-Tai comparative history. This approach gives more opportunity to historians in Assam to
explain the traditional characteristics of Ahom society and culture. Knowledge
of the history of other Tai groups may help solve problems in Ahom history. We
will give two examples, one on social institution and another on language.
Historians of Assam have long debated what was the origin of the agrarian
system and the manpower control system of the Ahom. After studying the
corresponding systems of other Tai groups, this question can now be answered.
Professor Jogendra Nath Phukan utilized the comparative history method in his
dissertation 'The Economic History of Assam Under the Ahoms' (1973). He
showed that in the Ahom kingdom all land belonged to the king, who distributed
it to the people to till. The size of each holding depended on the official rank of
the holder. The right to the land lasted as long as the holder retained his official
rank. The state levied no land tax but the people had to contribute corve labour
for three months a year through a system of rotation. In Siam the system for
distributing land and commanding corve labour was essentially the same as
those found in Upper Assam. Professor Phukan proposed that this system is a
distinctively Tai system, which the Ahom had brought with them from Muang
Mao. This system was different from that operating in Lower Assam, which had

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been influenced by Mogul practices. In Lower Assam there were private property
rights on land, land taxation, and a land market.76
The origin of the Ahom script is another historical problem which has become
much clearer through comparative study. A scholar from Muang Mao has
confirmed that the Muang Mao characters and the Ahom characters are almost
the same. Eighty per cent of the words are the same in both languages. Someone
who can read Tai Mao writing can also read Tai Ahom writing.77 It can therefore
be concluded that the Ahom script originated from the Tai Mao script.

IV. The knowledge of Ahom History from reading the Ahom

Buranji and other Ahom documents in the Tai language
Knowledge of Ahom history from Tai documents is only just emerging. It results
from new attempts to read such Tai documents as the Ahom Buranji chronicle,
the Ahom legends about the origin of the universe pun-ko-muang or lai-komuang, prayers to spirits, prayers in the calling of life essence khwan and
astrology texts. This knowledge has given us a picture of Ahom society and
culture as an early sakdina (Tai pre-capitalist) system, different from the system
of Mogul India.
Ahom society and culture was founded on an ancient concept of the community.
But the Ahom kingdom expanded to encompass several different ethnic
communities. In this respect Muang-nun-sun-kham became more complex than
the smaller Tai principalities in the Shan states, Sibsongbanna, Muang Thaen,
Muang Luang Prabang, Muang Vientiane, and so on. The Ahom kingdom was
possibly more developed even than the ancient state of Muang Mao in the sense
that the kingdom was more centralized. But the kingdom did not reach the level
of Ayutthaya which had a prosperous trading economy and complex
differentiation of official functions. The Ahom kingdom is an interesting case. It
shows how Tai society and culture was able to develop to the level of a kingdom
while still retaining the traditional belief system from the communal period called
phuralung (the big sky). This development took place without the supervention of
Buddhism or Hinduism. The Ahom kingdom can serve as a model of Tai society
and culture developed to the stage of early sakdina.
The Ahom Buranji and other Tai documents show that Tai society and culture
had their own identity, distinct from the Hindu society and culture of India.
76

77

J. N. Phukan. The Economic History of Assam Under the Ahoms. pp. 198-9; J.N. Sarkar. The Land
System and Revenue Administration. in H. K. Barpujarl (ed.). The Comprehensive History of Assam.
Vol. III, pp. 87-104; Chatthip Nartsupha. Meeting a Tai Ahom Historian [in Thai]. Thammasat
Journal. Vol. 11, No. 1, March 2525.
From an interview in August 2537 with Assistant Professor Zhao Hong Yun, a Tai of Chae Fang,
Dehong district, Yunnan province. Professer Zliao Hong Yun is attached to Yunnan Institute of the
Nationalities, Kun Ming.

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Knowledge from the Ahom Buranji and other Ahom documents supports the Tai
school of Ahom historical study.
In the realm of the economy the Ahom Buranji give us a picture of Muang-nunsun-kham as a low land full of river tributaries, such as nam-yen (cold water,
Sessa)78, nam-khun (muddy water, Gabharu)79, sup-nam-ha-khwae (meeting place
of five river tributaries, Panchanadi)80, sup-nam-ha (meeting place of five small
rivers, Hamukjam)81, khwae-nam-luang (big river tributaries, Barnadi)82, namrup/nam huk (the sixth tributary, Namrup)83. The biggest river was the dao-phi or
saeng-dao (the Heavenly Star, Brahmaputra)84. The Ahom Buranji mentioned
that there were floods, 'nam-thum-chae-thum-chung (the river flooded the town
and countryside)85, nam-thum-nam-yeng86 (the water flooded, water was
everywhere). Travel was principally by boats rua87, though horses and elephants
were also used. This description is consistent with the present geography of
Assam which is a low land with heavy rainfall and a humid climate unlike the dry
Hindustan plateau of India. The Ahom Buranji recorded that the Tai people had a
heritage of using water to irrigate rice land. When Prince Luang and Prince Lai
descended from heaven to Muang Ree Muang Rum, they rode on elephants to see
the settlements. They blade dikes and distributed water to rice land in these
settlements.88 Professor Jogendra Nath Phukan pointed out that the Ahom
converted the swamps surrounding the Brahmaputra river into rice farms using
ploughs thai89 to prepare the soil for sowing paddy wan-khao90. At Habung in
Upper Assam there were three rounds of rice planting in a year na-sam-ruang91.
The Ahom ate rice as their main food. Ahom documents mention many different
forms of rice: baked rice khao-ping92, red rice khao-daeng93, burned rice khaotchii94, broken rice khao-taek95, sweet rice khao-mun96, rice pieces khao-bin97,
food prepared from dry rice khao ro98 and rice sweets khao-mao99. In addition
78

Ahom Buranji (KT) 5g/6.

79

Ahom Buranji (KT) 10k/1.

80
Ahom Buranji (KT) 91k/4.
81
Ahom Buranji (KT) 37g/4.
82
Ahom Buranji (KT) 101g/7.
83
Ahom Buranji (KT) 10g/4.
84
Ahom Buranji (KT) 21g/4.
85
Ahom Buranji (KT) 10k/6.
86
Ahom Buranji (KT) 10k/1.
87
Ahom Buranji (KT) 92g/2.
88
Ahom Buranji (KT) 7k/3-4.
89

Tai Ahom - Thai Dictionary. p. 54.

90

Tai Ahom - Thai Dictionary. p. 64.

91
Ahom Buranji (KT) 10g/9.
92
Tai Ahom - 7hai Dictionary. p. 20.
93

Offering to the Spirits of Charaideo. Tai Ahom manuscript kept at DHAS, p. 2.

94

Tai Ahom - Thai Dictionary. p. 20.

95
Offering to the Spirits of Charaideo.
96
Tai Ahom - Thai Dictionary, p. 20.
97
Tai Ahom - Thai Dictionary, p. 20.
98
Tai Ahom - Thai Dictionary, p. 20.
99
Tai Ahom - Thai Dictionary, p. 20.

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there were other kinds of food such as ginger khing100, salt klua101, chilli prik102,
sesame oil man-nga103, duck pet104, chicken kai105, areca nut mak106, and betel
leaves phlu107.
The economy of the Ahom was on the same level as that of the Tai elsewhere.
They had progressed beyond swidden agriculture and had settled in the low land
to plant wet rice het-na-muang-lum. This was different from the various hill
tribes of Assam, such as the Nagas maen,108 Dafalas and Miris kha-kang-lai, or
those who lived in the forests and planted rice on the hills kha-thuan-na-doi.109
These hill tribes practised swidden agriculture and searched for forest products.
The Ahom also made yarn and weaved their own cloth. They planted cotton
kui110, spun yarn kwak dai111, raised silk cocoons and weaved. The weaving tools
included the loom kii112 and the wheel kong.113 Household weaving made the
Ahom self-sufficient. When Mahatrila Gandhi came to Assam in 1921 he made a
speech admiring the flourishing home industry in cloth making in Assam. As the
Ahom grew rice and also wove cloth, they did not have to depend much on
external trade.114 The markets kat115 in the Ahom kingdom dealt mostly in areca
nuts and betel leaves (kat-mak-mu).116
In the realm of administration, the Ahom system was an early version of Sakdina.
On the one hand there were traces of the communes. And on the other hand the
institution of the state was clearly evident. The large number of official titles
signifying government by senior persons is evidence of the lingering importance
of the communal system. Such titles include thao (elder)117, phuke (elder or
Barua)118, thao muang luang (elder of the big town or Birgohain)119, thao muang
(elder of the town or Gohain)120, phuke luang (senior elder or Barbarua)121. The
100

B. J. Terwiel and Ranoo Wichasin. Tai Ahoms and The Stars. p. 67.

101

B. J. Terwiel and Ranoo Wichasin. Tai Ahoms and The Stars. p. 67.
102
B. J. Terwiel and Ranoo Wichasin. Tai Ahoms and The Stars. p. 67.
103
Offering to the Spirits of Charaideo, pp. 3-23.
104
Offering to the Spirits of Charaideo, p. 3.
105
Offering to the Spirits of Charaideo, p. 3.
106
Offering to the Spirits of Charaideo, p. 3.
107
Offering to the Spirits of Charaideo, p. 3.
108
Ahom Buranji Sg/5.
109
Ahom Buranji 60g/3.
110
B. J. Terwiel and Ranoo Wichasin. Tai Ahoms and the Stars. p. 68.
111
Ahom Buranji, p. 5.
112
Tai Ahom-Thai Dictionary, p. 7.
113
Tai Ahom-Thai Dictionary, p. 9.
114

115

116

Mahatma Gandhi. Conditions in Assam. In: Satis Chandra Kakati. Discovery of Assam. (Guwahati:
Badan Ch. Barua, 1991), pp. 6-8.
Tai Ahom-Thai Dictionary, p. 3.

Ahom Buranji. (KT) 100k/7; Jadunath Sarkar. Assam and the Ahom in 1660 A.D. in Journal of the
Bihar and Orissa Research Society. Vol. 1, 1915, p. 194.

117

Ahom Buranji,(KT) 4k/6.

Ahom Buranji,(KT) 38g/9.
119
Ahom Buranji,(KT) 4k/6.
120
Ahom Buranji,(KT) 4k/6.
121
Ahom Buranji,(KT) 71k/1.
118

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phuke title had many subdivisions, such as phuke raidang122, phuke hua chang
(elder who supervises the elephants)123, phuke chao ye (elder who takes care of
the rice storage)124, phuke phu du kai (elder who takes care of the chickens)125,
phuke chang sara (medical doctor)126, phuke chao dang pa plong (elder who
supervises a forest)127, phuke phu feng kan ham (elder who carries a
palanquin)128. The officials as a group were called poi thao tang muang129, a
meeting of all the old people of the town. Any decision at the highest level
needed consultation of many people rang kan pong kan130. These titles and
practices suggest that the administrative system originated from the ancient
communal system in which rule rested with the elders.
At the same time, the institution of the state had already emerged. Power was in
the hands of the king chao fa and officials known as the thao tang lai131, phuke
phukong132 or phuwa phuprong133. The most important of the officials were the
three Dangarias sam chao phuprong134, namely the Buragohain chao prong
muang135, Bargohain thao muang luang and Barpatragohain chao sung luang136.
The Buragohain and the Bargohain had to be appointed from the families which
migrated to Assam with Sukapha, the first Tai Ahom king. The sons or younger
brothers of the king were usually sent to govern important towns such as Tipam,
Namrup, Sairing, Kachari (Timisa), Dibrugarh (Ti-Fao). These positions were
called chao lung (or Raja).137 Below the three Dangarias there were the following
positions in descending order:
thao muang, phukan luang (Barphukan)138, phukan, phuke 1uang (Barbarua)139,
phuke (Barua), phu kin muang (governor of town, Rajkhowa)140, hua heng (one
who commands 1000 persons, Hazarika)141, hua pak (one who commands 100
persons, Saikia)142, hua sao (one who commands 20 persons, Bara)143. This was a
122

Ahom Buranji, (KT) 40g/1.

Ahom Buranji, (KT) 64k/9.
Ahom Buranji, (KT) 83k/9.
125
Ahom Buranji, (KT) 86g/1.
126
Ahom Buranji, (KT) 87g/1.
127
Ahom Buranji, (KT) 84g/1.
128
Ahom Buranji, (KT) 140k/3.
129
Ahom Buranji, (KT) 11k/7.
130
Ahom Buranji, (K7) 11k/7.
131
Ahom Buranji, (KT) 20k/1.
132
Ahom Buranji, (KT) 140g/5.
133
Ahom Buranji, (KT) 17g/4.
134
Ahom Buranji, (KT) 65k/9,
135
Ahom Buranji, (KT) 31k/1.
136
Ahom Buranji, (KT) 5g/4,
123
124

137

Ranoo Wichasin. 'The Tai Ahom rank of Chaolung: a study based on the Ahom Buranji'. Paper
presented at the International Conference on Tai Studies, The Australian National University,
Canberra, 3-6 July 1987.

138

Ahom Buranji, (KT) 122g/8.

Ahom Buranji, (KT) 59g/13.
140
Ahom Buranji, (KT) 9g/8.
141
Ahom Buranji, (KT) 40g/5.
142
Ahom Buranji, (KT) 15g/2.
143
Ahom Buranji, (KT) 37k/7.
139

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system of control of manpower. The Buragohain had 10,000 persons under his
command144, the Bargohain 4,000145 and the Barpatragohain 6,000146.
The Phukan positions were sub-divided according to the various kinds of duty.
The Tai names for these positions indicate the scope and functions of the Ahom
government:
phukan na (supervisor of the rice fields)147,
phukan phai rua (supervisor of boats)148,
phukan phu tham kham (judge)149,
phukan phak kud (supervisor of vegetable farms)150,
phukan khwae (supervisor of river, tributaries)151,
phukan doi (supervisor of mountains)152,
phukan tun rung dam (supervisor of Kalibars)153,
phukan sung rua (supervisor of boat docks)154,
phukan phu tu khao (supervisor of rice barns)155,
phukan sairing (governor of Sairing)156,
phukan tai sun kluay (supervisor of the Tai people in the banana forest)157.
Phu kin muang was the title of the governor of a certain town, for example phu
kin muang kler (Sadiya)158, phu kin muang chae nong kham159, phu kin muang
chae rung.160
The hua sao positions were sub-divided into hua sao kan ham161 (palanquin carrier),
hua sao chao kai (chicken raiser)162, hua sao chao dang (executioner)163, and so on.
Many features indicate that the administrative system revolved around the control of
manpower. Official ranks were linked to the numbers of people under their control.
Under the manpower control system, every luk tai (person)164 was allotted to a khing
consisting of four households or mo khao (rice pot)165, and then to a division khel (a
144

N. K. Basu. Assam in the Ahom Age. (Calcutta: Pustak Bhandar, 1970), p. 108.

145

N. K. Basu. Assam in the Ahom Age. p. 108.

146
N. K. Basu. Assam in the Ahom Age. p. 108.
147
Ahom Buranji, (KT) 141g/8.
148
Ahom Buranji, (KT) 59g/1.
149
Ahom Buranji, p. 285.
150
Ahom Buranji, p. 290.
151
Ahom Buranji, p. 290.
152
Ahom Buranji, p. 290.
153
Ahom Buranji, (KT) 79k/5.
154
Ahom Buranji, (KT) 91k/3,
155
Ahom Buranji, (KT) 129g/ 1.
156
Ahom Buranji, (KT) 91g/4.
157
Ahom Buranji, (KT) 107g/2.
158
Ahom Buranji, (KT) 108g/2.
159
Ahom Buranji, (K7) 112g/7,
160
Ahom Buranji, (KT) 54k/5.
161
Ahom Buranji, p. 366.
162
Ahom Buranji, p. 366.
163
Ahom Buranji, p. 366.
164
Ahom Buranjl, (KT) 7-21, 9g/7.
165

B. Barua and N. N. Deodhai Phukan. Ahom Lexicons. (Gauhati: Department of Historical and
Antiquarian Studies 1965), p. 128.

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Persian word meaning department) according to function. This system of manpower

control, along with the distribution of land according to official rank and the
requirement of corve labour, are clearly similar to the sakdina system in Siam. But
the Ahom version retained more elements from the ancient communal system. The
names of the official positions support this assertion, and also the division of official
functions which was not as elaborate as in Ayutthaya.
The Ahom system was fundamentally different from the Indian caste system
which divided people in all aspects of their lives according to their relationship to
gods and according to strict instructions of the Hindu religion.
When the Ahom expanded to Lower Assam, they encountered the Hindu political
system in which the king was a god, far removed from the people, and the Brahmins
served as the king's advisers on ritual. Some aspects of the Hindu system were
subsequently adopted in the Ahom kingdom. The Ahom kings started to call
themselves by the names of gods - Svargadeo (one who comes from heaven). Hindu
names were used for various official positions. Caste was introduced and
differentiation of official ranks became more refined. Rituals became more elaborate
and included worship of Hindu gods. Siam went through a similar process. The Tai
of Ayutthaya were influenced by the Indianized Khmer. In late Ayutthaya, kingship
became more based on divine right.
In the realm of culture, the traces of the ancient communal system are most
evident. In the ancient period, the natural environment and the family had
fundamental roles in the culture.
People worshipped nature and ancestors. The phuralung religion of the Ahom
gave the highest place to the sky god faa.166
Other important spirits included faa nua hua167 or lengdon168, god of lightning sang
kam faa169, faa bot rum sang dam170, god of the rain chao sai fon171, goddess of star
light nang sang dao172, leng sang173, god of construction lao-khree174, and the sun khun
ban175.
In addition the Ahom paid respects to other natural spirits such as god of the earth
phi-din176, god of the wind phi lom177, god of the fire phi fai178, god of the mountain
166

Ranoo Wichasin (trans.). 'The Calling of Khwan in the Coronation of Su-Het-Peng-Fa', in: Language
and Inscription [in Thai]. (Bangkok: Faculty of Archaeology, Silapakorn University, 2532), p. 116;
Ahom Buranji, p. 3. The use of the word Phuralung for the religion of the Ahom follows Nagen
Hazarika. 'The Ahom Philosophy of God'.

167

Ahom Buranji, (KT) 57k/2.

Ahom Buranji, (KT) 7g/3.
Ahom Buranji, p. 2.
170
Ahom Buranji, p. 3.
171
Ahom Buranji, p. 5.
172
Ahom Buranji, p. 3.
173
Ahom Buranji, p. 6.
174
Ahom Buranji, (KT) 4k/6,
175
Ahom Buranji, p. 18.
168
169

176
177

Manuscript No. 1194 B, kept at the DHAS.

Manuscript No. 1177 B.

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phi-doi179, god of the moon phi-duan180 and god of the clouds phi khung chan
mok181. There was an idol called chum fa rung sng mang182 which was believed
to represent faa. The Ahom king had to keep this idol in an exalted place, that is in
the chum house183 near to the palace. At Rangapur (chae muan or town of fun) during
the coronation ceremony het chao nang muang184, the king had to bring the chum
out, worship it, and hang it from his neck. If there should occur any unnatural
phenomena such as a lunar eclipse kop klun dan185, solar eclipse kop klun wan186,
earthquake ing-san187, thunderbolt on the spirit house faa phaa ran phii188, a rain of
blood fon tok pen lad189, two suns wan ook soong luuk190, two moons dan ook
soong luuk191, stones which float hin luang fu192, a comet dao khon fai ook193, a star
signifying bad omen dao kham muang ook194, bad omen for the king or the country
kt kiu khun kiu mang, it was necessary to worship the sky and perform rituals to
ward off the bad omen k kiu195.
In addition to nature worship, the Ahom worshipped their ancestors by making
offerings to the spirits of the ancestors phi dam196. The phi dam were kept in the
house. Before doing anything important such as construction of a new town,
offerings had to be made to the spirits, and the future predicted through the ritual of
examining the legs of the fowl.197 Anyone who had violated the customs and sought
purification, also had to make offerings to the spirits and ask forgiveness from his
ancestors and from his community. The feeling of the Ahom of being one with their
ancestors appeared in the oath-taking ceremony among officials (in the reigns after
Chao Kamyang or Gobar in 1675). The officials swore that if they did not obey the
orders of the king, they and their ancestors should go to hell.198 Another story shows
the importance of the institution of the family and kinship. The heavenly god faa nua
hua proclaimed that there should be no sexual relations between a father and a
daughter or a daughter-in-law, a nephew and an aunt, a man and his sister-in-law, a
son and his mother, and so on. These rules were very strict in order to preserve the
178

179
180

181

Manuscript No. 1178 B.

Manuscript on Astrology kept at the DHAS,

Manuscript on Astrology kept at the DHAS.

Lik-Khaek-Khao-Kam. Manuscript No. 1184, kept at the DHAS.

182

Ranoo Wichasin (trans.). 'The Calling of Khwan in the Coronation of Su-Het-Peng-Fa'. p. 116.
183
Ahom Buranjj, (KT) Sk/9,
184
Ahom Buranji, (KT) 27g/9.
185
B. J. Terwiel and Ranoo Wichasin. Tai Ahoms and the Stars. p. 86.
186
B. J. Terwiel and Ranoo Wichasin. Tai Ahoms and the Stars. p. 86; Ahom Buranji, p. 283
187

Manuscript on Astrology from the Tai Museum. Sibsagar, Assam; Ahom Buranji. p. 283.

188

Ahom Buranji, p. 283.

189
Ahom Buranji, p. 293.
190
Ahom Buranji, p. 293; B. J, Terwiel and Ranoo Wichasin. Tai Ahom and The Stars. p. 84.
191
B. J. Terwiel and Ranoo Wichasin, Tai Ahoms and the Stars, p. 84; Ahom Buranji. p. 293.
192
Ahom Buranji, p. 293.
193
Ahom Buranji, (KT) 33k/6; Ahom Buranji, pp. 283, 293.
194
B. J. Terwiel and Ranoo Wichasin. Tai Ahoms and the Stars. pp. 55-7.
195
B. J. Terwiel and Ranoo Wichasin. Tai Ahoms and the Stars. pp. 42-5 1.
196
Offering to the Spirits of Charaideo. p. 3g.
197
Ahom Buranji, (KT) 40g/8.
198
Ahom Buranji, (KT) 126k/3.

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institution of the family. Other parts of Ahom Buranji mentioned cases of sexual
wrongdoings between brothers and sisters and between a man and a woman who had
a common grandfather. These people had to be punished.199
The Ahom worship of nature and ancestors is a belief system different from
Aryan Hinduism. The relations between man and god in a society reflect the
relations between human beings in that society. Phuralung is a belief system
based in an ancient communal society, while the Hindu religion originated in a
slave society. In phuralung the gods are natural elements and have no specific
forms. They are the sky, the moon, the sun, the mountain, and the river. The
ancestral spirits are the souls of people known to the community. Both faa and
phii are familiar. But in Hinduism the gods and goddesses such as Siva, Visnu
and Paravati appear in the form of humans. Man relates to these gods rather as a
slave to a master. These gods require elaborate rituals, admirations, and
sacrifices. As long as the Ahom state upheld the phuralung religion, the king,
priestly class, and officials were not separated from the common people. Even
over the surrounding hill people, the Ahom ruled with consideration with the
result that the Ahom were well accepted by the hill people. But after the Ahom
state accepted Hinduism in the 15th century, Ahom society started to have castes,
to pay high regard to the Brahmins, to accept Hindu rituals such as in the
coronations and cremations of the king. The phuralung religion reflects a Tai
society where class differentiation was not developed much and different
communities coexisted. Hinduism reflects Indian society where class and caste
distinction were clearly marked. Indian society was a society with slavery which
later became an Asiatic state society. The mental foundations of the Ahom may
have been different from those of the Indians and the Hindu Assamese.
In Ahom cultural history we read about the attempts to resist the domination of
Hinduism. The Ahom Buranji recorded that during the reign of Sunenpha
(reigned 1744-51) Ahom priests asked the king to construct a wooden house for
the coronation on grounds of tradition fing pu pan on200. When a comet appeared
in the reign of Surampha (reigned 1751-1760), the Brahmins recommended the
king to stay at Chae Muan, but the Ahom priests recommended the king to stay at
Tai-Muang. The king followed the advice of the Brahmins.201 In the reign of
Suyeopha (reigned 1769-1780) there was a question whether one should bury or
cremate the body of the late king. As already mentioned, after the real body had
been cremated, Suyeopha agreed to have an effigy of the late king buried
according to Tai custom. This king Suyeopha tended to follow the advices of the

199

Ahom Buranji, (KT) 6g/1-2 and 115k/1; Ahom Buranji, pp. 15-17.
Ahom Buranji, p. 280.
201
Ahom Buranji, p. 284.
200

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Brahmins in many rituals. The Tai priests recorded all these struggles between
them and the Brahmins in the Ahom Buranji.202
We can conclude that to read the Ahom Buranji and other Ahom historical
documents in Tai tells us that mang nun sun kham still possessed archaic elements
inherent in its society. The Ahom society worshipped the natural environment and
ancestors. Class differentiation was not too much developed. But over the 600 years
of the Ahom kingdom, Tai society had developed into an Asiatic system with a state
separate from the community. The state divided and distributed land to the people
according to their ranks, and required the people to contribute labour to the state.
Over this period, the penetration of Hinduism accelerated the Tai state's
transformation towards an Asiatic state. Hindu ideology supported a class and a caste
society. However as Hinduism and the caste system were not native to the Upper
Assam area, their influence was felt most at the level of the state rather than
throughout society as a whole. The common people still held on to the Tai beliefs.
Archaic characteristics continued. The Tai Ahom still believed in the phuralung
religion; at the same time they adopted Hinduism of the Neo-Vaisnavite doctrine. We
can detect these archaic characteristics by reading the Ahom Buranji and other
ancient documents in the Tai language.
Where are the old Ahom documents kept? How many manuscripts are there?
What subjects do they cover?
The Ahom documents are kept at the Department of Historical and Antiquarian
Studies (DHAS) of the state of Assam at Guwahati, at the Tai Museum at
Sibsagar, and at houses of the common people, especially those of the priestly
class. The members of this priestly class have inherited these manuscripts since
the period of the Ahom kingdom. The members are concentrated at the villages
of Patsako and Akhoya in Sibsagar district of Upper Assam. The majority of the
manuscripts deal with cosmogony, the earth and history. There is a custom to
copy these manuscripts by hand. The manuscripts are sacred books to be handed
down to descendants to preserve. Other kinds of manuscript are astrology books,
calendars, and books on rituals, omens and the ways to ward off bad omens,
prayers in offerings to spirits, prayers in the calling of life essence lik khaek lik
faa, lik rik khwan. These manuscripts are important handbooks for daily living for
all from the king down to the common people. There are also a few more recent
literary writings which relate to the past lives of Lord Buddha.
It is not certain how many Ahom manuscripts have survived. At the DHAS there
are 300 Tai manuscripts. Approximately half of this number are Ahom
manuscripts. At the Tai Museum in Sibsagar most of the 30 or so manuscripts are
Ahom. There has not yet been a full survey of the Ahom manuscripts still kept in
202

Ahom Buranji, pp. 325-6.

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private homes. Professor Puspa Gogoi, the secretary-general of the Ban Ok Pup
Lik Muang Tai, thinks there may be 1,000 manuscripts in existence. But many
may be copies of the same document. Professor Puspa Gogoi has already
identified 150 manuscripts. These manuscripts were written on sheets of tree
bark. Some have only a few pages, but some stretch to more than 300 pages.203
The Tai Ahom people are trying to study these ancient manuscripts with
translation help from experts on the Tai language from other Tai groups. The
important translators of Ahom documents working at the DHAS Ahom section
are Chao Nabin Shyam Phalung, an Aiton Tai, and Nang Ye Hom Buragohain, a
Tai Phake. Both read the Allonn language very well. Since 1795, Ahom scholars
have compiled several dictionaries to aid the study of Ahom documents:
1) Bar Amra (1795) compiled by Tengai Pandit;204
2) Ahom-Assamese-English Dictionary (1920) by Rai Sahib Golap Chandra Barua;205
3) Ahom Lexicons (1964, 1991) compiled by B. Barua and N. N. Deodhai Phukan;206 and
4) The Assamese-English-Tai Dictionary (1987) by Chou Nomal Chandra Gogoi.207

Besides these Tai Ahom dictionaries, one has to use Shan and other Tai dictionaries.
Each year the Ban Ok Pup Lik Muang Tai arranges a large cultural meeting among
various Tai groups, attended by tens of thousand of people. The Association issues a
yearly commemorating journal Souvenir in three languages (Tai, Assamese and English). At present, the knowledge of Ahom language is advancing. Ahom authors have
written short stories which have been published by the Association as pamphlets
Kham Seng (1992)208, and in book form Moang Fi (1993)209. Chow Nagen Hazarika
was the editor of Kham Seng and the author of Moang Fi. Kham Seng contains many
articles but the majority of them are in Assamese. Moang Fi contains thirteen Tai
songs written in the Ahom language and the Ahom script. It can be regarded as the
first Ahom literary work of a new era.

V. A direction for the study of Ahom history in the future

203

J. N. Phukan. 'A Note on the Contents of the Tai Manuscripts in the Department of Historical and Antiquarian
Studies.' in B. B. Hazarika (ed.), Souvenir: Golden Jubilee Celebration (1928-1978). pp. 14-18; Puspa
Gogoi, Nomal Gogoi. An Introduction to Tai Language and Literature. (Dhemaji, Assam: Chumphra
Printers, 1989); Puspa Gogoi. A Glimpse of Tai Literature in Northeast India. (Dhemaji, n.d.).
204
The manuscript is kept at the DHAS.
205
Rai Sahib Golap Chandra Barua. Ahom-Assamese-English Dictionary. (Calcutta: Baptist Mission Press, 1920).
206
B. Barua and N. N. Deodhai Phukan. Ahom Lexicons. (Gauhati: Department of Historical and
Antiquarian Studies, 1965).
207
Chau Nomal Chandra Gogoi. The Assamese English Tai Dictionary. (Tinsiikia, Assam: Nang Nirada Gogoi, 1987).
208
Kham Seng. Edited by Chow Nagen Hazarika. The Journal of the Ban Ok Pub Lik Mioung Tai, July
1992. Kham Seng rneans the words of the gods. For the bibliography of recent works on the Ahom in
Tai, Assamese and English see Nang Masurn Aideoo (Fie), 'The Recent Publications on the Ahoms: A
Bibliography', in The Tai, Vol. I, pp. 85-91.
209
Chow Nagen Hazarika. Moang Fi. (Dibrugarh, Assam: Ban Ok Pup Lik Mioung Tai, 1993).

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At present the society of Assam is developing towards capitalism as Assam

becomes more open to the outside world. The middle class has emerged. This
middle class has two segments. First, there are Tai-Ahom who are descendants of
the middle-level officials of the old kingdom of Assam. These families took up
education in the schools set up by the British, and continued to serve as
administrators and professionals. Second, there are outsiders who have migrated
to Assam since the advent of British rule. Several families of well-educated
Bengalis came to work in the civil service of Assam during the time of the British
rule. The owners of the tea plantations and other capitalists are mainly Indians
from far away states especially Rajasthan. Both the capitalists and the middle
class people of the Bengal origin hold to the Hindu culture and Assamese
language. The emerging capitalism in Assam is an Assamese capitalism, which is
linked to the capitalist system of India.210
In this process the Ahom have a problem. What role should they play? The
majority of the Ahom want to develop their own Ahom society in the Upper
Assam area, and to uphold their Tai culture. They believe that the development of
Assamese capitalism will force them to play a subordinate role. They can be only
the white collar workers or the farmers. The majority of the Ahom think this way.
But among the Ahom middle class including officials, professionals,
businessmen, and politicians, the view is not so clear. In part they are tempted to
collaborate with the development of the dominant Assamese capitalism. In part,
they too wish to preserve a distinctly Ahom culture and identity. If they
emphasise more on the second option, then they will be able to develop Upper
Assam an economic, political and cultural centre in its own right, centred on
Sibsagar, separate from the Assamese centre in Guwahati. Upper Assam has tea
plantations and petroleum. If the Ahom have more autonomy, Upper Assam
under the Ahom can progress more rapidly and can simultaneously preserve the
traditional administrative system and Tai culture. To achieve this result, the
Ahom middle class needs to come closer to the common Ahom people, to the
other Tai groups, and to the hill people and other Mongolian peoples in Upper
Assam. The Ahom need to turn more to the East, and to increase their ties with
South East Asia and Thailand.
A study of Ahom history is therefore very important for the construction and
preservation of the Tai consciousness of the Ahom. Ahom history has an identity
of its own and is a body of knowledge of its own. It should not be absorbed
totally into the history of Assam or the history of India.
Comparative history and comparative philology may be the most appropriate
methods to apply to Ahom studies. As already mentioned, a comparative study of
210

Manorama Sharma. Social and Economic Change in Assam: Middle Class Hegemony. (Delhi: Ajanta
Publication, 1990), pp. 111-34.

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Tai histories may help solve important questions in Ahom history. In order that
Ahom historical study will not be totally absorbed into a history of Assam, one
should also study Ahom cultural history as part of the cultural history of the Tai
people as a whole. An intra-Tai comparative history of culture may be a suitable
way to approach Ahom history.
In addition a study of the written Ahom documents is very important to understand
Ahom history and culture. It is a foundation to construct an autonomous Ahom history and culture. To understand Ahom language and culture we should make a comparative study with the Tai Mao or Tai Nua as these languages are closer to the Ahom
than other Tai variants. In Assam itself the Aiton language is nearest to the Ahom
language. The Ahom may rely on the help of the Aiton in reviving the language.211
For a study of Ahom history, academic and cultural cooperation between the
Ahom and the Thai of Thailand is useful. As the Ahom no longer use the Tai
language in everyday speech, and have only just revived the use of written Ahom,
Thailand's language scholars will be able to help the Ahom to understand better
the meanings of many words, to reconstruct the pronunciation, and to develop
new words.212 At the same time the Thai in Thailand can receive help from the
Ahom in searching for the roots of our people: As we in Thailand have
progressed, we have come away from our traditional culture in some areas.
The Ahom in Assam are very active in the revival of Tai culture. They have
asked for a certain level of autonomy in administration. They have made rapid
progress in the study of Ahom history, and created a very lively academic milieu
in the state of Assam today. This is most meaningful to the existence of their
people, which is also our people.

Thank
The writers would like to thank Professor Chao Puspa Gogoi of Dhemaji College, Assam, who has
given them much knowledge on the Ahom. For this paper in particular he explained to the writers the
importance of the works on the Ahom written in Assamese. He also has sent numerous books and
articles to the writers. The writers thank the Ban Ok Pup Lik Muang Tai Association for having
invited them to Assam twice, between 17 and 24 February 1990 and between 13 and 27 February
1993, and for having paid all the expenses for the writers in the state of Assam. The writers were most
warmly welcomed during those two visits. The writers would like to thank Dr. Chris Baker for editing
the English. The research for this paper was supported financially by the Office of the National
Culture Commission of Thailand. The writers would like to thank the Office and its officials who had
supported this project, especially Dr. Rung Kaewdang, Khun Sawitree Suwansathit, Dr. Nanthasan
Sisalup, Khun Kunwadee Charoensee, and Khun Bunpa Milinthasut.
211
212

Chatthip Nartsupha and Ranoo Wichasin, 'Tai Cultural Revival in Assam'.

ibid.

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