01The Koch at their height
Naranarayan came to the throne at Cooch Behar in 1540. He was a learned king who had studied Sanskrit at Kashi, and his reign is remembered as the high point of Koch power. His brother Shukladhwaja, called Chilarai, led the army east against the Ahoms and south and west against the Kacharis, Jaintia, Manipur, Tripura and Sylhet, and for a time most of these paid tribute to Cooch Behar. The king struck silver coins, the narayani tanka, that remained the model for the region’s money for centuries.
02Kamakhya and Sankardev
The shrine of Kamakhya on Nilachal hill above Guwahati, one of the holiest Shakti pithas, had been ruined in the raids of the early sixteenth century. Naranarayan and Chilarai had it rebuilt, and an inscription of 1565 on the temple records their work; the present temple stands on that rebuilding. When Srimanta Sankardev, the Vaishnava saint, faced hostility in the Ahom country, he came to the Koch kingdom, and Naranarayan received him at court. Chilarai became his devotee. Under Koch protection the Ekasarana movement and its namghars spread across western Assam.
