Note 2 — Characteristics, Physical and Moral; Origin, Distribution and Historic Summary, etc.

Historic Sketch. IV. The only branch of this widely spread race that may be said to have anything like an authentic history is that settled in what is known as the once powerful kingdom of Kāmārūpa (Koch), the reigning family of which is now represented by the Rajas of Koch-Behar, Bijni, Darrang (Mangaldai) and Beltola. But on the history of this (the Western) section of the Kachári race there is no need to dwell, as it was very effectively dealt with some few years ago.2 But the earliest historical notices of the Eastern branch of the race show that under the name of Chutiyás they had established a powerful kingdom in the Eastern corner of the Province, the seat of Government being at or near the modern Sadiya. How long this kingdom existed it is now impossible to say; but what is known with some degree of certainty is, that they were engaged in a prolonged struggle with the Ahoms, a section of the great Shan (Tai) race, who crossed the Pátkoi Hills from the South and East about A.D. 1228, and at once subdued the Moráns, Boráhis, and other Kachári tribes living near the Northern slope of these hills. With the Chutiyás the strife would seem to have been a long and bitter one, lasting for some 150 or 200 years. But in the end the victory remained with the Ahoms, who drove their opponents to take refuge in or about Dimápur on the Dhansiri at the foot of the Naga Hills. There for a time the fugitives were in comparative security and they appear to have attained to a certain measure of material civilisation, a state of things to which some interesting remains of buildings (never as yet properly explored) seem to bear direct and lasting witness. Eventually, however, their ancient foes followed them up to their new capital, and about the middle of the sixteenth century the Ahoms succeeded in capturing and sacking Dimápur itself. The Kachári Raja thereupon removed his court to Máibong (“much paddy”), where the dynasty would seem to have maintained itself for some two centuries. Finally, however, under pressure of an attack by the Jaintia Raja the Kachári sovereign withdrew from Máibong to Kháspur in Kachar (circa 1750 A.D.). There they seem to have come more and more under Hindu influence, until about 1790 the Raja of that period, Krishna Chandra, and his brother Govinda Chandra made a public profession of Brahminism. They were both placed for a time inside the body of a large copper image of a cow, and on emerging thence were declared by the Brahmins to be Hindus of the Kshatriya caste, Bhīma of Mahābhārat fame being assigned to them as a mythological ancestor. Hence to this day the Darrang Kacháris sometimes speak of themselves as “Bhīm-nī-fsā,” i.e. children of Bhīm, though as a rule they seem to attach little or no value to this highly imaginative ancestry.