Kamata Kingdom

Modern historians have sometimes used the expression Kamarupa–Kamata for the political transition between the earlier Kamarupa formations and the later polity centred at Kamatapur. The territory controlled from Kamatapur varied over time. Later historical reconstructions associate the polity at its greatest extent with parts of present-day North Bengal, western and central Assam and northern Bangladesh, but the boundaries and intensity of control during its poorly documented early phases remain uncertain. The last rulers were the Khens, who were later displaced in 1498 by Alauddin Hussain Shah, the ruler of the Bengal Sultanate. Though Hussain Shah developed extensive administrative structures, he lost political control to a confederation of Baro-Bhuyan within a few years.

In 1515, Biswa Singha removed the Baro-Bhuyan confederacy and established the Koch dynasty. The Koches were the last to call themselves Kamateshwar (the rulers of Kamata), but due to the far-reaching extensive influence and expansions, the kingdom is sometimes called the Koch Kingdom. In the following century, the kingdom split into Koch Bihar and Koch Hajo. The eastern kingdom, Koch Hajo, was absorbed into the Ahom kingdom in the 17th century. The western portion of the Kamata kingdom, Koch Bihar, continued to be ruled by a branch of the Koch dynasty and later merged with the Indian territory after the independence of India from the British domain. The boundary between Koch Bihar and Koch Hajo is approximately the boundary between West Bengal and Assam today.

Rulers of Kamata Kingdom

The political history of the Kamata kingdom region before the rise of the Koch dynasty remains uncertain and is largely reconstructed from traditions and scattered sources. Historians have relied on limited epigraphic evidence alongside later literary works, genealogical traditions, and retrospective chronicles, resulting in reconstructions that remain tentative.

K. L. Barua, whose 1933 work provided one of the early attempts to reconstruct this chronology, explicitly acknowledged these limitations. In the preface to Early History of Kamarupa, he described the history of Kamata as obscure, noted that no epigraphic records of its kings were then known to him, and stated that in preparing a chronological list he had been "left, more or less, to conjecture", adding that some of his conjectures might be unfounded.

Traditional genealogy and proposed origin

The origin of Kamata and the identity of its earliest rulers remain uncertain. A later genealogical tradition, preserved in accounts connected with the ancestors of Sankardev, traces Durlabha Narayan through Pratapadhvaja, Singhadhvaja, Rup Narayana, and Sindhu Rai to a ruler named Sandhya. In the version discussed by K. L. Barua, Sandhya is described as having become Gaudesvara; the tradition does not clearly identify the territory over which Sandhya and his immediate successors ruled.

On the basis of this genealogy, the association of Durlabhanarayana with Kamata in early Assamese literature, and a chronology calculated backwards from the conventional 1449 birth date of Sankardev, Barua proposed that Sandhya transferred the seat of government from Kamarupanagara to Kamatapur after the defeat of Malik Ikhtiyaruddin Iuzbak. Barua presented the proposal tentatively, describing the Guru Charitra account as “rather confused” and stating that the resulting chronology could only be tentatively suggested. Barua also acknowledged the obscurity of Kamata's political history and envisaged its rulers as exercising a loose suzerainty over numerous Bhuyan chiefs, who may have administered much of the country in practice. The traditional succession is not independently corroborated by contemporary inscriptions, coins or chronicles for Sandhya and most of the intermediate rulers. Baniprasanna Misra has questioned the historical use of the progressively elaborated biographical traditions concerning Sankardev, noting that the earliest biographies did not provide the fixed birth chronology later accepted by historians and that supernatural, genealogical and chronological details accumulated in later works. Consequently, the identification of Sandhya as the founder of Kamata and the conventional foundation date of about 1257 represent modern historical reconstructions rather than conclusions directly established by contemporary evidence. The later traditional genealogy names Sandhya, Sindhu Rai, Rup Narayana and Singhadhvaja among the predecessors of Durlabhanarayana. Their identification as successive rulers of a kingdom called Kamata has not been independently established.

In the 14th century, Sultan Shams al-din Ilyas Shah conquered Kamata-Kamrup at the very end of his reign, and his son Sikandar Shah made an expedition in the very first year of his reign, i.e. 759 AH/1360 AD, and struck silver coins from Chawlistan Urf Arsah Kamru, which has been identified by scholars like Abdul Karim as the Kamrup mint. Since a coin of no other date of his has so far been reported bearing Kamrup mint, it is difficult to surmise whether he could keep Kamrup under his control for a considerable time or not. Some historians have associated this campaign with the Yavana or Bangal invasion recorded in the Gachtal stone inscription from Dabaka in the Kapili valley, dated to the year 1362 AD. The inscription indicates that the invading forces had penetrated eastwards as far as the Davaka region and records that nearly three thousand enemy troops were trapped and driven downstream through the coordinated use of riverine warfare and seasonal floods. On this basis, it has been suggested that the Kamata king, together with the Kachari ruler Mahamanikya, resisted Sikandar Shah's advance into the Kapili valley around 1362 AD. The inscription found at Boko, Kamrup of Sultan Ghiyasuddin Azam Shah (1389-1410) indicates that the region was occupied by the Sultanate for at least a few years during his reign.

Durlabhanarayana and Indranarayana

Early Assamese works associated with the court of Durlabhanarayana provide the clearest literary evidence for a monarchy identified with Kamata or Kamatapur. In the Vavruvahanar Yuddha, Harivara Vipra praises Durlabhanarayana as a ruler of Kamata and states that he became king at Kamapura, interpreted by Maheswar Neog as a probable reference to Kamatapura. Hema Saraswati similarly associates Durlabhanarayana with Kamatapura. Kaviratna Saraswati identifies Indranarayana as the son of Durlabhanarayana and praises him as the succeeding ruler. Neog nevertheless cautioned that the political history of the period lacks reliable chronicles and comparable copperplate evidence, and that the extent of the kingdom called “Kamata or Kamata-mandala” remains conjectural. He further stated that nothing definite is known about the nature of the rule or other political activities of these Kamata kings.

Traditions concerning Chandivara

Later biographies of Sankardev state that two rulers named Dharmanarayana and Durlabhanarayana divided their territories and that Durlabhanarayana received or settled several Brahmin and Kayastha families, including Chandivara, an ancestor of Sankardev. The surviving versions differ regarding the identities of the rulers, their titles, the direction in which the families were transferred, and the territories assigned to them. K. L. Barua noted that the version in the Guru Charitra by Ramcharan Thakur reverses the more commonly repeated account of the transfer. S. C. Rajkhowa rejected K. L. Barua's reconstruction that Dharmapala and Durlabha Narayana had fought and subsequently partitioned the kingdom between them, arguing that this interpretation depended on a misreading of Ramcharan Thakur's account and lacked corroborating evidence. Rajkhowa considered only the possibility that Dharmapala may have been a ruler of eastern Kamarupa contemporary with Durlabha Narayana, rather than accepting him as a securely established participant in such a partition. Earlier historians dated this migration by calculating backwards from the conventional 1449 birth date of Sankardev. Barua explicitly followed this method in placing Durlabhanarayana in the fourteenth century. Baniprasanna Misra subsequently questioned the reliability of the conventional birth chronology and the expanding body of later biographical traditions on which such calculations depend, and places Shankardeva's birth year in the 1480s.

Chutia connections

A copperplate issued in 1428 by the Sadiya-based Chutia ruler Durlabhanarayana names him as the son of Dharmanarayana and grandson of Ratnanarayana. Ratnanarayana is described in the record as king of Kamatapura after defeating the enemies of Kamadeva. The grant contains a verse concerning Ratnanarayana, deciphered by Maheswar Neog with the assistance of Sanskrit scholars:

Ekuha bhūt Kamatāpure narapati bhūpāla-varārcitaḥ
Kandarpa-pratipakṣa-lakṣa-vijayī Śrī Ratnanārāyaṇaḥ.

An Assamese translation published in Chutia Jatir Buranji renders the verse as stating that Ratnanarayana became a king in Kamatapura, was honoured by other rulers, and was victorious over one lakh enemies of Kandarpa (Kamadeva).

Maheswar Neog identified Ratnanarayana with Satyanarayana of the Sadhayapura grants, a Chutia ruler known from a late-fourteenth-century grant, whose son Dharmanarayana is named in the Bormurtiya inscription. He observed that the record suggested that the eastern region called Sadhaya or Sadiya and the western region of Kamatapura were politically connected and the same Satyanarayana/Ratnanarayana might have held sway over both regions. The precise nature of this connection—whether direct government, conquest, dynastic authority, tributary overlordship or temporary occupation—is not stated in the inscription. It is also not known for certain whether this enemy was the Sultanate or some other local ruler.

Beyond the epigraphic evidence, a Buranji chronicle also seems to preserve a tradition connecting Chutia rulers with the designation Kamateswar. Padmeswar Naobaisha Phukan's Asom Buranji, in its account of the reign of the Ahom king Sukhaangphaa, states that "Kamateswar, the king of the Chutias" gave his daughters Rajani and Bhajani in marriage to the Ahom ruler.

Arimatta Traditions

A number of later and mutually inconsistent traditions connect a ruler named Arimatta or Sasanka with Kamarupa and Kamata. Some modern reconstructions place him after Indranarayana and identify him as a Bhuyan chief who seized Kamatapur, but no contemporary inscription or coin securely establishes this succession. Maheswar Neog noted that one traditional chronology places the beginning of Arimatta's reign in 1438 CE, while S. C. Rajkhowa interpreted the same date as marking the end of his reign, placing his conflict with Durlabhendra in the early fifteenth century. Scholars like Maheswar Neog, Dimbeswar Neog and Edward Gait have, however, considered the historicity of the Adi Charita (which is the source of the Arimatta legend) doubtful, stating that its accounts appeared to be based mainly on legends and popular traditions, and described Arimatta as “at best, a legendary figure.” Dimbeswar Neog further noted that “the Arimatta legends are so hopelessly divergent” that attempts to reconcile them would be futile, pointing to contradictory traditions concerning Arimatta's descendants and family. One traditional genealogy gives the sequence Arimatta, Gajanka, Sukranka and Mriganka; this succession is not independently corroborated.

Khen Rulers

The origin and early chronology of the Khen rulers are uncertain. The sequence Niladhvaja, Chakradhvaja and Nilambara is principally preserved in later traditions. J. N. Sarkar noted that the account was reconstructed in part from the nineteenth-century Gosani Mangala and other retrospective materials. As per the reconstructed history, Niladhvaj Khen, the first king, united several Baro-Bhuyan chieftains of the area and removed the last of Arimatta's successors—Mriganka, although this narrative is not established by contemporary evidence.

Later traditions preserve the names of three Khen rulers:

• Niladhvaja
• Chakradhvaja
• Nilambara

By the late fifteenth century, however, a polity called Kamata is more clearly visible through Bengal Sultanate evidence. Coins of Shamsuddin Muzaffar Shah bearing the title Kamata-mardana indicate a campaign against Kamata in 1492–93, while Alauddin Hussain Shah subsequently conquered Kamatapur and defeated its ruler, conventionally identified as Nilambara.

List of early rulers

Bengal Sultanate Rule

Alauddin Hussain Shah, a Sultan of Bengal, removed the last Khen ruler in 1498. This followed a long siege that likely started in 1493 soon after Alauddin's ascension and ended in a treacherous win with 24,000 infantry, cavalry and a war flotilla. Alauddin destroyed the city and eventually annexed the region up to Hajo by 1502, removed the local chieftains, and established military control over the region. He established his son Shahzada Danyal as an administrator and issued coins in his own name as the "conqueror of Kamru and Kamata ...". This rule was short since the Baro-Bhuyans rose up in revolt soon after and exterminated Sultanate rule.

• Danyal (1498-????)

Nevertheless, the Muslim rule had lasting effects. Hussein Shah's coins continued to be used till 1518, when the Koch dynasty began consolidating its rule. Ghiasuddin Aulia, a Muslim divine figure from Mecca, established a colony at Hajo. His tomb, which is said to contain a little soil from Mecca, now called "Poa Mecca" ("a quarter Mecca"), is frequented by Hindus and Muslims alike.

Baro-Bhuyan Interregnum

Alauddin Hussain Shah's representative in Kamata, his son Shahzada Danyal and his officers, was seized and killed by the Baro-Bhuyans of the region, and the region lapsed into their confederated style of governance till the Koches took over. Though it is not known when the Baro-Bhuyan rule began, historians estimate that Biswa Singha's campaign against the Baro-Bhuyans began in 1509.

Koch Kingdom

• Biswa Singha (1515–1540)
• Nara Narayan (1540–1587)

The Kamata kingdom then passed into the hands of the Koch dynasty, with Biswa Singha consolidating his control over the Bara-Bhuyans one after another and establishing the Koch dynasty with its dominion from the Karatoya River in the west to the Barnadi River in the east. In the 1581 Raghudev, the son of Chilarai and the nephew of Nara Narayan, affected a split in the kingdom—Koch Hajo and Koch Bihar. Though Raghudev had accepted the suzerainty of his uncle, the two parts of the original Kamata kingdom split for good in 1587 when Naranarayan died, the boundary between them forming roughly the administrative boundary between the present-day Assam and West Bengal.

Koch Hajo, the eastern kingdom, soon came under attack from the Mughals, and the region went back and forth between the Mughals and the Ahoms, finally settling with the Ahoms. Koch Bihar, the western kingdom, first befriended the Mughals and then the British, and the rulers maintained the princely state till the end of British rule.

Administration System

Yuvaraj: Biswa Singha appointed his brother Sisu as the Yuvaraj. The descendant of Sisu became the Raikat kings of Jalpaiguri.

Karjis/Karzis: Biswa Singha appointed twelve ministers from his tribesmen to form a Karjee. This position was hereditary. Two important Karjee and Yuvaraj form a cabinet.

Senapati: Commander of a standing army.

Paik System

Paik: Individual male

• Thakuria: in charge of over 20 paiks.
• Saikia: in charge of over 100 paiks.
• Hazari: in charge of over 1000 paiks.
• Omra: in charge of over 3000 paiks.
• Nawab: in charge of over 66,000 paiks.