Ahomisation

Ahomisation is the historical process in the former Ahom kingdom of Assam by which people from different ethnic groups in the region became a part of the Ahom population. Ahom kingdom existed for nearly six hundred years and in the process unified the various ethnic groups of the region that left a deep impact on the region.

Kareng Ghor made by one of the Ahom Kings situated at Garhgaon

Chaolung Sukaphaa (reign 1228-1268), also Siu-Ka-Pha, was the founder of the Ahom kingdom of Medieval Assam. He was a Tai prince originally from Mong Mao, along with his 9000 followers arrived in what is now Assam.[1][2] During the initial phase, Sukaphaa and his 9000 followers moved about for nearly thirty years. On his way, he stopped at various places and crossed the Khamjang river to reach the Nangyang lake in 1227. Here he subjugated the Nagas very ferociously. He then moved from place to place, searching for a place to establish his kingdom. And finally established the kingdom in 1228 in what is now Charaideo in eastern Assam.

Sukaphaa then made peace with some local Assam based ethnic groups, especially from the Borahi and the Moran ethnic groups. Sukaphaa then married the daughters of both Badaucha, the Moran Chief and Thakumatha, the Borahi chief and established cordial relations with them. As he began establishing his domain, he avoided regions that were heavily populated.[3] He also encouraged all his Tai soldiers as well as the members of the Tai elites to marry with the locals, which led to the beginning of the process of Ahomisation. So he and his mostly male followers married into them, creating the admixed population known as the Ahoms.[4]

The Shan-Tai settlers displayed assimilative capacity. While the Shan invaders called themselves Tai, they came to be referred to as Āsām, Āsam and Acam by the indigenous peoples of the region.[5] The modern Assamese word Āhom by which the Tai people were known as was derived from Āsām or Āsam. Socially, they fully identified themselves with the multi ethnic groups of their occupation, the new name Ahom legitimised and recognised their political supremacy and leadership. The conquest of the Moran and Borahi ethnic groups at the initial stage produced the conquest society. Because the Tai-Ahoms neither liquidated nor exterminated the vanquished population, but instead took them as partners of peace and development.[6]

The Tai settlers brought with them the superior wet-rice cultivation, and believed that they were divinely ordained to bring the fallow land under the plow, with their techniques of wet-rice cultivation, and also to adopt the stateless shifting cultivators of the region into their fold.[7] They were also conscious of their numerical minority.[8] As a result, Ahom polity initially absorbed people from various ethnic groups such as, Borahi, Moran and Naga. And later after subjugating the Chutiya kingdom and Dimasa Kingdom, a large section of the Chutia and the Dimasa-Kachari populace too were absorbed into the Ahom population.[9] This process of Ahomisation went on for till mid-16th century when the Ahom society itself came under the direct Hindu influence.[10]

Many indigenous people from various ethnic groups were ceremonially adopted into Ahom clans are recorded in the chronicles known as "Buranji". Thus the illustrious Ahom family of Miri Sandikai was founded by one Miri (Mising), the adopted son of a Burhagohain. King Gadadhar Singha (1681-1696) accepted two Naga princesses as his consorts. The new converts, if possessed of efficiency, were even recruited to important administrative posts. Thus the second Borphukan, the governor of Lower Assam, was the son of a Naga of Banferra clan. Queen Phuleswari, who took the regalia to her hand during the reign of king Siva Singha (1714-1744), appointed a Bhutanese youth as her page. Kancheng, the first Barpatra Gohain was born and brought up in a Naga family.[11] Miri-Sandikoi and Moran-Patar were Sandikoi and Patar from the Mising and Moran communities, while majority of Chetias as well as the Lahon clan belonged to the Chutia community.[12] This was true even for the priestly clans: Naga-Bailung, Miri-bailung and Nara-Bailung.[13] Since the Ahoms married liberally outside their own exogamous clans and since their own traditional religion resembled the religious practices of the indigenous peoples, i.e.- animism along with Hinduism, the assimilation under Ahomisation had a very little impediment.[10][14] The Borahis, were completely subsumed into the Ahom fold, though the Morans even today maintain their independent ethnicity. This is why terms like 'Sutiya-Ahom', 'Kachari-Ahom', 'Moran-Ahom' have been used in the Buranjis (chronicles). During the pre-colonial period (pre-British raj), the Ahoms were not an ethnic community like it is considered as now, but rather Ahoms were a relatively open status group. Any community coming into the socio-economic fold of the Ahom state could claim the Ahom status with active consent of the king.[15] The modern Ahom people and their culture are a syncretism of the original Tai and their culture[16] and local Tibeto-Burman peoples and their cultures they absorbed in Assam.

In the contexts of conquest, the general process is the fact that the subjugated groups normally adopt the language and customs of the conquerors. This was the root of the Ahomisation process. But even after the process of Ahomisation started in the region, the Ahom kings observed that complete political influence in the country was not possible. And with the expansion of the territory and with the further inclusion of divergent population a reverse process took place. The conquerors had no other alternative but to sanction the use of the language and culture of the conquered in the common level of the totality.[6] So after the subjugation of Chutia territories as in Chutia Kingdom, the process of Ahomisation gave way to the process of Sanskritisation (Hinduisation). The Hindu cultural elements came into Ahom royal palace during reign of Sukhaangphaa (1293-1332) when the Koch king of Kamata Kingdom of Western Assam offered his daughter to the Ahom king to conclude the battle between Koch and Ahom kingdom.[17] This was the first recorded marriage of an Ahom king with a Hindu princess outside of the kingdom and this event of marriage definitely brought in some Hindu elements to the Ahom royal palace. After the annexation of Chutiya kingdom, Kachari Kingdom and Baro-Bhuyans kingdom, the Ahoms assimilated their own culture with them. The Ahom royal also later appointed the some Chutiyas and Bhuyans in their office, inter-married and had relations with them. Thus, the cultural assimilation took place which majorly impacted the social structure, belief and practices in the Ahom society.

Due to their initial contact of the Tai-Ahoms with the local people of the region, the Tai speakers learnt the local language and culture for better communication and interaction with local people. Because Tai-Ahom belongs to Tai group of people who initially spoke a Tai language. So for better communication and smooth running of the Ahom administration they learnt the local Assamese language. But even after the Ahom administration adopted the Assamese language, they did not totally forgot their own Tai language. The adoption of Assamese language also changed the language of Chronicle writings, the Buranji(s),where they write their all events. Even though the already mixed group known as 'Ahom' made up a relatively very small portion of the kingdom's population[9], they still maintained their original Tai-Ahom language alongside Assamese and practised their traditional religion until 16th century, when the Ahom court, completely adopted the local language of the region, the Assamese language.[18]

Sanskritisation

So, gradually the Ahom royal accepted influenced the Hinduisation, which led to Hindu religion's entry into the Ahom royal palace during the reign of Sudangphaa also known as Bamuni Kowar (reign: 1397–1407). Sudangphaa also appointed a Brahmana as an advisor in the Ahom Royal court and also he was the first Ahom king to adopt the coronation of Singarigharutha. Singarigharutha was the traditional coronation ceremony of an Ahom king. It was believed that even though an Ahom prince became a king, he could not attain the status of a full-fledged monarch until his Singarigharutha ceremony was completely performed. Therefore, each Ahom ruler after their accession to the throne tried to organize the ceremony as soon as possible.

Suhungmung (reign: 1497–1539) was the first Ahom king to adopt the Hindu title Swarga-Narayan, a sanskrit equivalent of Tai-Ahom's Chao-Pha. According to Gait (1887), after the reign of Suhungmung the Ahom king prefer to use their Hindu names in the official records. The kings who were traditionally known with the title of Chao-Pha were replaced by the title of Swargadeo and since then Ahom kings came to be known as the 'Swargadeo'.

The priestly classes of the Ahom like the Mohan, Deodhai and Bailung, mostly remained outside the purview of Hinduism and continued to express their unwillingness to come into the fold of the Brahmin Hindus.[19] However the traditions of Tai culture and religion can be found to be preserved by some priestly classes in rituals, marriages and festivals which today reflect the Ahom style of living.

Notes
  1. Mahanta,S. Assam Buranji. D.H.A.S., 1945, p. 5.
  2. A review of Buranjis, p.76
  3. (Gogoi 1968:264)
  4. " The Ahom kingdom’s establishment, traditionally dated at 1228, was done by a group migrating from the southeast, large numbers of whom were male army members, who would have taken local non-Tai speaking wives." (Morey 2014:51–52)
  5. (Neog, 1962, p.1)
  6. http://dspace.nehu.ac.in/handle/1/9262
  7. (Guha 1983:11–12)
  8. (Baruah 1977:251)
  9. "Ahoms were never numerically dominant in the state they built and, at the time of 1872 and 1881 Censuses, they formed hardly one-tenth of the populations relevant to the erstwhile Ahom territory (i.e, by and large, the Brahmaputra Valley without the Goalpara district.)" (Guha 1983:9)
  10. (Guha 1983:12)
  11. (Baruah 1977:251)
  12. Dutta, Shristidhar,The Mataks and their Kingdom,p/30
  13. (Gogoi 2006:9)
  14. (Baruah 1977:251–252)
  15. Yasmin Saikia (2004). Fragmented Memories. ISBN 978-0-8223-3373-9.
  16. http://shodhganga.inflibnet.ac.in/bitstream/10603/8154/10/10_conclusion.pdf
  17. (Boruah, S.L, 2007)
  18. "The Ahom language and Ahom script were relegated to the religious sphere, where they were used only by some members of the traditional priestly clans, while Assamese speech and writing took over in secular life." (Terweil 1996:276)
  19. (Phukan, 2010, p. 14)

References
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