Chutiya Kingdom

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The Chutiya kingdom^[1] (pronounced sutia) was established by Birpal in 1187 in northeastern Assam, with the capital at Sadiya. The Chutiya are an indigenous ethnic group that speak a Tibeto-Burman language. According to tradition, Birpal at first became the chief of sixty families.

The most illustrious of the Chutiya kings was Gauri Narayan (Ratnadhwajpal), son of Birpal. He brought many other Chutiya groups into his kingdom. In 1224 Ratnadhwajpal defeated Bhadrasena, the king of Swetagiri. Then he went on to subjugate Nyayapal and marched toward Kamatapur, where he formed an alliance with the Kamata ruler by marrying a princess. Then he marched to Dhaka, and camped some distance away from the city. Though records exist of this expedition, there is no account of a war at Dhaka.

The hostilities with the Ahoms began in 1376 when the Ahom king, Sutuphaa, was killed by the Chutiya king during a friendly encounter. The simmering dispute often flared till 1522 when the Ahoms finally took Sadiya and killed the then king Nityapal. The Ahoms established their rule by instituting the position of Sadiyakhowa Gohain, the governor in charge of Sadiya. But the Chutiya had dispersed to frontier regions, and continued raids against the Ahoms. This finally stopped in 1673 when the Chutiyas finally accepted Ahom overlordship.

[edit] Notes

^ Gait 1906, p 38. The term chutiya is an expletive in Hindi. On the other hand, Chutiya denotes an ethnic group in Assam a people that established a strong kingdom that existed for more than three hundred years till it was overran by the Ahom kingdom in the 16th century. The Chutiya community exists today in Assam, and is known by that name locally. That this term has been used in Assam indicates that Hindi has had minimal impact in the region till recent times.