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Ahom kingdom

Sukaphaa crossed the Patkai hills in 1228 with a small band of Tai followers, and his house ruled Assam for six hundred years. The Ahoms beat back every Delhi and Mughal invasion of the valley, most famously at Saraighat in 1671.

  1. Sukaphaa1228–1268
  2. Suhungmung (Dihingia Raja)1497–1539
  3. Pratap Singha (Susengphaa)1603–1641
  4. Jayadhwaj Singha1648–1663
  5. Chakradhwaj Singha1663–1669
  6. Udayaditya Singha1669–1673
  7. Gadadhar Singha1681–1696
  8. +9
Period: 1228–1826 CERegion: The Brahmaputra valley of Assam, from Sadiya to the Manas riverCapitals: Charaideo, Garhgaon, Rangpur (Sivasagar), Jorhat
Photo: Rangan Datta Wiki · CC BY-SA 4.0

01Sukaphaa and the moidams

Sukaphaa settled at Charaideo in 1253 and made it the first capital. Long after the court moved down to the plains, kings and queens were still carried back to Charaideo to be buried in moidams, great earthen mounds over vaulted brick chambers. In 2024 the moidams of Charaideo were inscribed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site. The Ahoms kept court chronicles, the Buranjis, first in the Tai Ahom language and later in Assamese, year by year, a habit almost no other medieval Indian court had.

02Holding the valley

Suhungmung, the Dihingia Raja, took the Chutia country in 1523 and threw back Turkic raiders from Bengal. Mir Jumla, Aurangzeb’s general, took the capital Garhgaon in 1662, but the rains, disease and Ahom raids wore his army down and he died on the way back. Chakradhwaj Singha refused to live under the treaty that followed. Guwahati was retaken, and at Saraighat in 1671 Lachit Borphukan, sick and carried to the front, broke Ram Singh’s Mughal fleet on the Brahmaputra. Gadadhar Singha’s men won at Itakhuli in 1682, and the Mughals never came back past the Manas.

Navagraha Temple, Guwahati
Place · 18th century, the Ahom king Rajeswar Singha; damaged in the 1897 earthquake and repairedNavagraha Temple, GuwahatiA temple of the nine planets on Chitrachal hill in Guwahati, where nine lingas, each draped in its graha’s colour, sit around a central linga of Surya. Old Guwahati was Pragjyotishpura, the city of eastern light and of astronomy.Read →

03Temples, then the fall

Under Rudra Singha and his sons the Ahom kings built in brick on a grand scale: the Jaysagar tank, the Sivasagar tank with the Sivadol raised by Queen Ambika in 1734, the Rang Ghar pavilion of Pramatta Singha, and the Kareng Ghar at Garhgaon. The Moamoria rising of 1769–1805 split the kingdom from within. Burmese armies then invaded three times from 1817, and the Treaty of Yandabo in 1826 handed Assam to the East India Company. Purandar Singha ruled Upper Assam under the British from 1833 to 1838, and the kingdom ended there.

The rulers

  1. 1SukaphaaFounder; settled Charaideo1228–1268
  2. 2Suhungmung (Dihingia Raja)Took the Chutia country; first to use a Hindu title1497–1539
  3. 3Pratap Singha (Susengphaa)Organised the kingdom; fought the Mughals1603–1641
  4. 4Jayadhwaj SinghaGarhgaon taken by Mir Jumla1648–1663
  5. 5Chakradhwaj SinghaRetook Guwahati1663–1669
  6. 6Udayaditya SinghaSaraighat won in his reign1669–1673
  7. 7Gadadhar SinghaVictory at Itakhuli, 16821681–1696
  8. 8Rudra SinghaMoved the capital to Rangpur1696–1714
  9. 9Shiva SinghaSivasagar tank and Sivadol1714–1744
  10. 10Pramatta SinghaBuilt the Rang Ghar1744–1751
  11. 11Rajeswar SinghaKareng Ghar at Garhgaon1751–1769
  12. 12Lakshmi SinghaMoamoria rising began1769–1780
  13. 13Gaurinath SinghaMoved the court to Jorhat1780–1795
  14. 14Kamaleswar Singha1795–1811
  15. 15Chandrakanta SinghaRuled amid the Burmese invasions1811–1818, 1819–1821
  16. 16Purandar SinghaLast king, under the British1818–1819, 1833–1838

What they left

  • The moidams of Charaideo, UNESCO World Heritage Site (2024)
  • The Buranjis, year-by-year court chronicles
  • Rang Ghar, Kareng Ghar and Talatal Ghar
  • Sivadol on the Sivasagar tank
  • Six centuries in which no Mughal army held Assam for long

People

SukaphaaRuler
reigned 1228–1268 CE

Sukaphaa

Founder of the Ahom kingdom of Assam

Srimanta SankardevSaint
1449–1568 CE (Assamese tradition)

Srimanta Sankardev

Founder of Ekasarana Dharma in Assam

Lachit BorphukanWarrior
1622–1672 CE

Lachit Borphukan

Ahom commander, victor of Saraighat

Places

Navagraha Temple, GuwahatiRebuilt
Maratha ascendancy and the Sikh empire

Navagraha Temple, Guwahati

A temple of the nine planets on Chitrachal hill in Guwahati, where nine lingas, each draped in its graha’s colour, sit around a central linga of Surya. Old Guwahati was Pragjyotishpura, the city of eastern light and of astronomy.

Charaideo and the Ahom MoidamsStanding
Sultanates, Vijayanagara and the kingdoms that stood

Charaideo and the Ahom Moidams

The hills where Sukaphaa set up the first Ahom capital around 1253, and where for six hundred years the Ahom kings and queens were laid in moidams, vaulted chambers under great earthen mounds. The moidams became a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 2024.

Satras of MajuliStanding
Sultanates, Vijayanagara and the kingdoms that stood

Satras of Majuli

Majuli, a large river island in the Brahmaputra, holds the oldest living Vaishnava satras of Assam, the monasteries of Srimanta Sankardev’s Ek Sharana Naam Dharma.

GarhgaonRebuilt
The Mughal era and the resistance

Garhgaon

The Ahom capital east of Sivasagar from 1540, a city of bamboo hedges, embankments and carved wooden halls that Mir Jumla’s chronicler described with open wonder when the Mughal army took it in 1662. The brick Kareng Ghar standing today was built in the 1750s.

Kamakhya TempleRebuilt
The Mughal era and the resistance

Kamakhya Temple

On Nilachal hill above the Brahmaputra stands the most revered of the Shakti Peethas of the east, where the Kalika Purana says the yoni of Mata Sati fell. There is no murti in the garbhagriha, only a cleft in the rock kept wet by a spring.

Itakhuli Fort, GuwahatiDestroyed
The Mughal era and the resistance

Itakhuli Fort, Guwahati

The Mughal fort on Itakhuli hill on the south bank of the Brahmaputra at Guwahati, taken by Lachit Borphukan in November 1667 and again by Gadadhar Singha’s army in 1682, when the Mughals were driven out of Assam for good. The Sukreswar temple now stands on the hill.

Lachit Borphukan’s Maidam, HoollongaparStanding
The Mughal era and the resistance

Lachit Borphukan’s Maidam, Hoollongapar

The earth-mound tomb near Jorhat in which the Ahom king Udayaditya Singha laid the remains of Lachit Borphukan, victor of Saraighat, after his death in 1672. Since 2024 a great bronze statue of Lachit stands at the site.

Umananda TempleRebuilt
The Mughal era and the resistance

Umananda Temple

A Shiva temple on Peacock Island, a rock in the middle of the Brahmaputra at Guwahati, built in 1694 on the orders of the Ahom king Gadadhar Singha.

Joysagar Temples (Joydol), SivasagarStanding
The Mughal era and the resistance

Joysagar Temples (Joydol), Sivasagar

The temples on the bank of the Joysagar, one of the largest man-made tanks in India, which the Ahom king Rudra Singha dug in honour of his mother Joymoti, who died under torture in 1680 rather than betray her husband.

Ugratara Devalaya, GuwahatiRebuilt
Maratha ascendancy and the Sikh empire

Ugratara Devalaya, Guwahati

The temple of Ugratara in Uzan Bazaar, Guwahati, built by the Ahom king Siva Singha in 1725 beside the Jorpukhuri tanks. There is no murti: the Devi is a small pit of water in the sanctum.

Sivadol, SivasagarStanding
Maratha ascendancy and the Sikh empire

Sivadol, Sivasagar

The tall Shiva temple of the Ahom capital Rangpur, raised in 1734 on the bank of the great tank of Sivasagar, with a Vishnu temple and a Devi temple beside it.

Sukreswar Temple, GuwahatiStanding
Maratha ascendancy and the Sikh empire

Sukreswar Temple, Guwahati

A Shiva temple on Itakhuli hill above the Brahmaputra in Panbazar, Guwahati, with one of the largest lingas in Assam. A long flight of steps runs down to the Sukreswar Ghat, where families perform shraddha for the dead.

Basistha Temple and Ashram, GuwahatiStanding
Maratha ascendancy and the Sikh empire

Basistha Temple and Ashram, Guwahati

The hermitage of Maharshi Vashishtha, by Assam’s tradition, in a wooded valley at the south-east edge of Guwahati, where three mountain streams meet. The Ahom king Rajeswar Singha built the Shiva temple here in 1764.

Negheriting Shiva Doul, GolaghatRebuilt
Maratha ascendancy and the Sikh empire

Negheriting Shiva Doul, Golaghat

A panchayatana Shiva temple on a hillock near Dergaon, rebuilt in brick by Rajeswar Singha in 1765 in place of an older stone temple that the Buranjis mention in the wars with the Kacharis.

Battles

Battle of Alaboi

Aurangzeb sent Ram Singh of Amber to retake Guwahati. At Alaboi the Ahoms met his army on open ground and were badly beaten, the worst day of the whole war.

August 1669 CE

Battle of Saraighat

The last and decisive battle of Ram Singh’s invasion was fought on the river at Guwahati. Lachit Borphukan, gravely ill, had himself carried onto a boat and led the counter-attack.

March 1671 CE

Battle of Itakhuli

In 1679 Guwahati had been handed to the Mughals by a treacherous Ahom governor. Three years later Gadadhar Singha sent his army down the river and won it back for good.

1682 CE

Evidence

Ahom BuranjisChronicle
Kept from the 13th to the 19th century

Ahom Buranjis

The court chronicles of the Ahom kingdom, kept year by year for six centuries from the arrival of Sukaphaa in 1228.

On the timeline