हिंदीOn this day
Standing

Cooch Behar

Capital of the Koch kings, who rebuilt Kamakhya and fought the Bengal Sultans and the Ahoms, survived Mir Jumla’s occupation in 1661, and stayed a princely state until it joined India in 1949.

Built: Seat of the Koch kingdom founded by Vishwa Singha, early 16th centuryWhere: West Bengal26.32° N, 89.45° E
  1. c. 1515
  2. 1565
  3. December 1661
  4. 5 April 1773
  5. 1887
  6. 1949–50
Photo: Amartyabag TALK2ME · CC BY-SA 3.0

01Naranarayan and Chilarai

Vishwa Singha united the Koch chiefs in the early 16th century and set up a Hindu kingdom between the Teesta and the Brahmaputra. His son Naranarayan and Naranarayan’s brother Shukladhvaja, called Chilarai, the kite, for the speed of his marches, made it the strongest power in the north-east for a generation. Chilarai’s campaigns in the 1560s ran from the Ahom country to Manipur and Sylhet. Naranarayan had Kamakhya rebuilt in 1565, gave shelter to Shrimanta Shankaradeva at his court, and had the Mahabharata and Puranas put into Assamese and Kamrupi verse. The kingdom later split, and the western half, Koch Bihar, kept the old line.

02Mir Jumla, the Company and the merger

In December 1661 Aurangzeb’s governor of Bengal, Mir Jumla, marched in on his way to invade Assam, occupied the capital and renamed it Alamgirnagar; the raja Pran Narayan withdrew to the hills and recovered his country once the Mughal army had gone on. In 1772 a Bhutanese army overran the state, and the Koch court bought British help by the treaty of 5 April 1773, which made Cooch Behar a protected state. Maharaja Nripendra Narayan built the palace in 1887 and the Madan Mohan temple, where the Ras Mela is held every Kartik. Cooch Behar joined India by an agreement of August 1949 and became part of West Bengal on 1 January 1950.

The life of this place

  1. c. 1515Vishwa Singha founds the Koch kingdom.
  2. 1565Naranarayan and Chilarai rebuild Kamakhya.
  3. December 1661Mir Jumla occupies the capital and renames it Alamgirnagar; the Koch recover it after he moves on.
  4. 5 April 1773Treaty with the East India Company after the Bhutanese invasion.
  5. 1887Maharaja Nripendra Narayan builds the palace.
  6. 1949–50Cooch Behar joins India and is merged into West Bengal on 1 January 1950.
Visiting

The palace is now a museum. The Ras Mela at the Madan Mohan temple starts on the Kartik Purnima and runs for weeks.

People

NaranarayanRuler
reigned 1540–1587 CE

Naranarayan

Koch king who rebuilt Kamakhya

ChilaraiWarrior
c. 1510–1571 CE

Chilarai

Koch general of the north-east

Nearby

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Jalpesh Temple, Jalpaiguri

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Bhramari Devi Temple (Trisrota Shakti Peetha), Jalpaiguri

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Kantajew Temple, Kantanagar

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Hanuman Tok and Ganesh Tok, Gangtok

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