01What the plates tell
Much of what is said about the early Chutias comes from later chronicles and cannot be fixed with dates. The firm ground is a handful of inscriptions. Copper plates of Satyanarayana and Lakshminarayana, from the late fourteenth and early fifteenth centuries, record gifts of land to Brahmins in Sanskrit, with the kings’ names ending in -narayana. A stone inscription of Dharmanarayana, dated 1442, was found at the Tamreswari temple near Paya, in the Lohit country.
02The copper temple
Tamreswari means the lady of the copper temple; its roof was once covered in copper sheets. Here the goddess Kechaikhati was worshipped, and the Ahom chronicles say the shrine was kept up after the conquest, with its own priests. Earthquakes and the shifting rivers have buried much of it. Stone sculptures, carved doorways and terracotta plaques from the site survive, and the mason’s marks on its stones can still be read.
03The end at Sadiya
The Chutias and the Ahoms fought along the Dihing and the Brahmaputra through the early sixteenth century. In 1523 the Ahom king Suhungmung took Sadiya; the Chutia king Dhirnarayana was killed. The Ahoms made Sadiya the seat of a new governor, the Sadiya Khowa Gohain, and settled Chutia nobles and artisans, among them skilled smiths, through their own kingdom. The Chutia people are today one of the communities of Assam.
The rulers
- 1SatyanarayanaKnown from his copper-plate grantslate 14th century
- 2LakshminarayanaCopper plates granting land to Brahminsearly 15th century
- 3DharmanarayanaTamreswari stone inscriptionfl. 1442
- 4DhirnarayanaLast king; killed when Sadiya felld. 1523
What they left
- Tamreswari temple ruins near Paya
- Sanskrit copper-plate grants of the -narayana kings
- Sadiya as a frontier seat under the Ahoms