There were many aboriginal tribes in North-East India. The Koches are one of them. In the early 16th century they captured power in the western side of the Brahmaputra valley. For a certain period they wielded sovereignty over the major parts of the North-East India. (The Koch Kingdom Part 1)
They significantly contributed towards the progress of civilization and culture of the Brahmaputra valley especially but their contribution to civilizational progress spread in general throughout North-East India.
Kamata-Koch Behar was a state situated south of the Himalayas during the 16th to 18th centuries. There is great obscurity leading to academic controversies about the way of its establishment. However it existed for a long period and is remarkable for its antiquity, sustained continuity and survival down the centuries. Sustenance and spread of influence of the state is evidenced by its coins.
The state was established in 1496 in the vacuum created after the collapse of Kingdoms of Kamarupa and Kamta and became one of the great regional powers of North East India. The early history of the Kingdom has to be sought in that of Assam. In early times this was known as Pragjyotisha.
The geographical boundary of the Kingdom was defined by Nature. The Baranadi and the Brahmaputra rivers constitute the eastern boundary while the river Tista and the Karatoya the western boundary. In the northern flank Bhutan constitutes the border. The confluence of the Brahmaputra and the Karatoya in Rangpur district, now in Bangladesh, defines its southern border. With the passage of time the administrative jurisdiction of the Koch Kingdom changed in phases. The inner area of the Kingdom is plane with a slight incline on the south-eastern flank along the courses of the major rivers of the Kingdom. There are nominal ups and downs but some regions are so low that they get flooded during rainy seasons. No mountain or hill inside the region is there.
The water courses run north-west to south-east. As a rule the rivers originate from the Himalayas and flowing from western Duars finally join the Brahmaputra. During summer the rivers are lean; they become gorgeous and turbulent during the rainy season. The significant rivers include Tista, Karatoya, Sankosh, Torsha, Dharla, Raidak, Kalchini, Jaldhaka, Mujnai, Gadadhar etc. Historically the river system played crucial role in state formation. The river system provided a natural security in those days with limited arsenals. Floods also proved effective defense mechanism against the adjacent adversaries. The alluvial soil made it highly fertile.
The present name of the region is Cooch Behar; earlier it formed one part of the much bigger territory, Kamrup. The territory has been called Pragjyotish, Kamarupa and Kamarupa-Kamta. The Sanskrit text Kalika Purana compiled in the early medieval period informs that Pragjyotish Kingdom was situated between the Dikkrai and the Karatoya in pre-Christian era when the legendary Naraka and Bhagadatta reigned there. In early CE Pragjyotish was changed to Kamarupa. The term Kamarupa appears in the Allahabad Prasasthi of Samudra Gupta (325-376A.D.). That time it was an adjacent kingdom. But in Kalidasa’s Raghuvamsa composed in the 5th Century both Pragjyotisha and Kamarupa are found.
With the coming of the Varmanas the term Kamarupa began to be widely used. We get a new term from Hiu En Shang’s account. He visited the place and described it as Kia-Mo-Leo-Po. In Yogini Tantra, a late medieval Sanskrit text we come upon the name Kamata. Baharistan-I-Ghaibi also refers the state as Kamata. The term Cooch Behar has been first used in Shahjahan Nama about the mid-17th century. In the Anglo-Koch treaty of 1773 the territory was mentioned as Cooch Behar. But during the medieval period the area was mentioned as Kamata. The Khen kings founded a kingdom.
Prior to the formation of the Koch state in early sixteenth century the state was under the sovereign power of Kamarupa kingdom and also under some other hereditary ruler. Prior to the appearance of the Khen family its political stature was hazy. So it is better to start from the emergence of the Khen.
In the first part of the fifteenth century the Khens established their authority. From the Kamarupa Buranji we know that after the dynasty of Arimitta a new clan comprising three kings Niladhvaja, Chakradhaja and Nilambara reigned over the area with its capital at Kamatapura. W. W. Hunter stated that king Niladhvaja succeeded the Pala dynasty. S. K. Chatterjee, on the other hand, is of the view that Niladhvaja defeated the Palas in a battle.
It is problematic to trace the root of Niladhvaja. In Kamatesvara Kula Karik, Shrutidhar Rup Narayan states that the monarchs of Kamata were the descendants of king Vardhana of Vardhankot. Frightened of Nanda (Mahapadma Nanda) they took shelter in Kamata with the name of Bhanga Ksatriya and later recognized as Rajbangsi. Incidentally D. C. Sircar recognized Vardhankot as Bardhankot and brands it as a portion of the Nivriti country.
Patala of Bhramara Tantra says that the sons of Vardhana discarded Ksatriya practice and took shelter in Ratnapitha (Kamarupa) and were identified as Rajbansis.
Tradition has it that Niladhvaja, the founder of the Khen dynasty, rose from of a humble position. As per Gosanimangala he was the cowboy of a Brahmin who identified symbols of kingship in the figure of the boy. At the instance of the Brahmin he beat the last Pala ruler in a battle near Guwahati, announced himself the king and assumed the title Niladhvaja. He made his capital at Kamatapura on the west bank of the river Dharla by settling many Mithila Brahmins in his kingdom. Gunabhiram Barua clarified that this was a prevalent ritual. He did a lot to re-begin the devotion of the Khen people. They were elevated to the high position of pure Hindus through this admirable performance. Rakhaldas Banerjee pointed out that Niladhvaja conquered the city of Kamatapura which already existed there. Niladhvaja made certain modernizations of the fortified city which had been constructed sometimes ago.
Niladhvaja was succeeded by his son Chakradhvaja in 1460. A significant event during his reign was the battle against Bengal Sultan Barbak Shah but the Sultan didn’t register remarkable success in the battle against the monarch of Kamata. The predomination of Chakradhvaja is confirmed by the discovery of the shrine of Gosani of Kamateswari, the principal deity of the family. The shrine of Gosani or Kamatesvari is located within Kamatapura, the capital of Kamata. Chakradhvaja was succeeded by his son Nilambara in the monarchy of Kamata in 1480. The territory of Nilambara is said to have included the larger part of Goalpara and Kamarupa, the whole of Rangpur and Cooch Behar and portion of Jalpaiguri and Dinajpur. Edward Gait thinks that he captured a distant part of North eastern areas from under Gauda kings. Nilambara built the long road from Kamatapur to Ghoraghat (Rangpur), remains of which are found in the present day Dinhata-Mekhliganj road.
The Joy Bangla Deception: A Revelation
The compact Kamata state posed a great challenge to the Sultans of Bengal. So within a few years Bengal Sultan Hussain Shah (1493-1519) attacked Kamata and seized its capital in 1498. The Muslim conqueror brutally plundered the city, as is their wont, defiled and destroyed the Hindu shrines. Images of Gods and Goddesses were smashed. The kingdom as far as Hajo was seized. According to hearsay Hussain Shah constructed a Madrasa in Malda in memory of triumph over the ruler of Kamata. In addition he issued coins in which he expressed his desire to hold the title as the victor of Kamata, Kamaru, Jajnagar and Orissa. The Sultan appointed Danyal or Dulal Ghazi as the administrator of the occupied land with the object to follow further conquest to the east. But the rule of the Muslim was short-lived. The Bhuiyans made a joint outbreak on the Denial’s battalion and demolished the entire battalion. Thereafter there prevailed a state of chaos and anarchy in the state and a number of minor principalities emerged under local heads usually recognized as Bara-Bhuiyans who increasingly declared their freedom.
Sudip Narayan Ghosh
Will be continued.
