Chutia Kingdom

This article is about the medieval kingdom of Assam Valley, India. For other related article that focuses on the Chutia community of Assam, see Chutia people.

Chutiya Kingdom
1187–1673
Coat of arms
The Chutiya Kingdom c. 13th century during the reign of King Gaurinarayan.
Capital	Swarnagiri (1187–1225) Ratnapur (1225–1248) Sadiya (1248–1524)
Common languages	Assamese language, formerly Deori language
Religion	Hinduism, Shaktism
Government	Monarchy
Monarch
• 1187–1210	Birpal (first)
• 1522–1524	Nityapal (last)
Historical era	Medieval Assam
• Founded by Birpal	1187
• Expansion under Gaurinarayan	1210 -1250
• Ahom-Chutiya conflict	1513 -17th century
• Siege of Sadiya	17 April 1524
• Disestablished	1673
Preceded by Succeeded by Kamarupa Ahom kingdom
Today part of	India

Rulers of Chutia kingdom
Part of History of Assam
Known rulers of the Chutia kingdom
Nandisvara	late 14th century
Satyanarayana	late 14th century
Lakshminarayana	early 15th century
Durlabhnarayana	early 15th century
Pratyakshanarayana	mid 15th century
Yasanarayana	mid 15th century
Purandarnarayana	late 15th century
Dhirnarayana	unknown - 1524
Chutia monarchy data
Capitals of the Kingdom Sadhyapura
Royal Flag Mayuradhwaja
Coat of Arms Gaja-Singha
Royal Heirlooms Gold and Silver Cat(Mekuri) Gold and Silver Umbrella (Danda-Chhatra) Gold and Silver Bedstead(Sal-pira)
Royal Throne Sunuwali Tinisukia Singhakhana
Royal residence Kundilnagara
Tutelary deity Kechai-khati

The Chutiya Kingdom (1187–1673), alternatively spelt Sutia, Chutia, Sutiya or Sadiya, was a state established by Birpal, a Chutiya chieftain in 1187 CE in the areas comprising the present-day Indian states of Assam and Arunachal Pradesh.

Birpal was one of the numerous Chutiya chieftains/ rajas who ruled present-day Upper Assam and Arunachal Pradesh. Over the years he and his successors united all the Chutiya kings of Assam and Arunachal Pradesh in the hills and plains to form the greater Chutiya kingdom after the fall of Pala dominance. It was the largest kingdom in Assam after the fall of Kamrupa and before the rise of Ahom kingdom. The kingdom absorbed the ancient Pala dynasty of Kamarupa and reigned for over 400 years in eastern Assam and Arunachal Pradesh with its capital at Sadiya and Ratnapur. Swadhyadhipati/Sadhayapuriswar is the Assamese name for the king of the Chutiyas. Sadiya was the name of the kingdom as well its capital. It became the dominant power in eastern Assam in the 12th century and remained so until the 16th century with its domain from Parshuram Kund in the east to Vishwanath in the west.

It controlled the present Assam districts of Lakhimpur, Dhemaji, Tinsukia, parts of Jorhat, Dibrugarh, Sonitpur and East Siang, Subansiri, Lower Dibang, Lohit districts of Arunachal Pradesh.

Among the Chutiya kings was Gaurinarayan (Ratnadhwajpal), son of Birpal. He brought many other Chutiya groups into his kingdom. In 1224, Ratnadhwajpal defeated another Chutiya king named Bhadrasena, the king of Swetagiri, and conquered the area between Subansiri and Sissi rivers, i.e. present-day Dhemaji district. In 1228, he went on another campaign to further expand his kingdom and subjugate the Chutiya king Nyayapal (ruling the areas between Biswanath and Subansiri,i.e. present-day Biswanath and Lakhimpur districts) and marched toward Kamatapur, where he formed an alliance with the Kamata ruler by marrying a princess. Then he marched to Dhaka, and made friends with the Gauda ruler. The hostilities with the Ahoms began when the Chutiya Kingdom expanded to the south during which the Ahom king, Sutuphaa, was killed by the Chutiya king during a friendly negotiation. This conflict triggered a number of battles between the two sides which saw the great loss of men and money. The simmering dispute often flared till 1524 when the Ahoms struck the Chutiya Kingdom at its weakest state, took Sadiya and killed the then king, Nityapal. The Ahoms established their rule by instituting the position of Sadiyakhowa Gohain, a newly constituted position of frontier-governor in charge of Sadiya. But the Chutiya had dispersed to frontier regions, and continued raids against the Ahoms. It finally ended in 1673 when they fell under the domination of the Ahoms.

History

Asura lineage

The copper plates of the Chutia kings give us a great deal of information about the lineage of the Chutiya kings. Names of as many as six kings of the royal geneology between Satyanarayan and Dhirnarayan has been added with the help of the text from these grants. These texts inform us that Chutiya kings followed the Asura(demon) lineage. According to the Dhenukhana copper plate inscription of Satyanarayan (1392 AD), king Nandi (or Nandeswara), a great hero of many virtues, was the lord of Sadhayapura, and Daivaki, Nandi’s wife, was continuously accomplishing good deeds. Satyanarayan had his origin in Daivaki’s womb, ‘forming part of the lineage of the enemy of the gods’ (suraripu-vamsansa-bhuto), uplifting the earth of her burden. Maheswar Neog interprets ‘the lineage of the enemy of the gods’ as the Asura dynasty. Further, it is mentioned that Nandeswar was like a lion to the infuriated elephants who were his enemies(madunmataktu vipaksha kari-kesari). These references of "lion over elephant" as well as "uplifting the earth of her burden" are similar to the references of Narakasura-Varaha as mentioned in the 10th century text Kalika Purana. The reason for his asura lineage is not explicitly explained in the inscription; but the two statements that his mother is 'Daivaki’ and he has ‘the shape of maternal uncle (who was) given the name of Daitya’ (daityanāmāttamāmāmatih) can be seen as an indirect reference to his lineage. In many Puranas, Daivaki was known as the mother of Krishna as well as the sister of Kamsa, the maternal uncle of Krishna. Kamsa was the eldest son of Ugrasena, but in fact he was the incarnation of an asura called Kalanemi. The epigraphic record of Satyanarayan, whose lineage is named in reference to his maternal uncle, is therefore significant. It may constitute evidence of matrilineality of the Sadiya-based Chutiya ruling family, or that their system was not exclusively patrilineal. The demonic ancestry of the Chutiya ruling family therefore may represent their otherness and inferiority which were imposed by migrant brahmins. It surely resonates with the genealogical claims made by the three ruling families of Kamarupa ̶ Varmans, Mlecchas and Palas. They all emphasised the maternal side of the progenitor Narakasura, born between Bhumi, the Mother Earth, and Varaha, the boar incarnation of Vishnu. Naraka was almost always called Bhauma or the son of Bhumi in the epigraphic records of the time, and rulers of Kamarupa such as Brahmapala in the early tenth century claimed to belong to avanikula or the lineage of the Earth, that is the mother of Naraka.

The Asura genealogical claims of the Chutiyas changed in the course of time due to the influence of neo-Vaishnavism. The lineage of Chutiya kings, explicitly mentioned as Sura-ripu-vamsa in the Dhenukhana inscription dated 1392, is absent from the later reconstructed chronicles; instead, they are represented as the descendants of king Bhismaka, the father-in-law of Krishna. Their divine kingship is further emphasised by the birth of the first king Gaudinarayan(alias Ratnadhvajapala) whose actual father was the god Kubera. It appears to follow the birth story of Biswa Sinha, the founder of Koch state in the sixteenth century, born between Shiva and Hira. At a deeper level, however, the story of Chutiyas reveals a different facet of their royal lineage. Firstly, Rupavati, the name of the Gaurinarayan’s mother, carried negative connotations in Puranic traditions: she belonged to the daityas, one of the main lineages of asuras. This is similar to the reference of the maternal uncle of king Satyanarayan, who was also named Daitya, assigning the king a demonic genealogy. Secondly, the actual father of the Chutiya king was mentioned as Kubera, known as the lord of treasure and of various semi-divine beings including gandharvas, kimnaras, yaksas, etc. His original character was rather demonic as seen in the Atharvaveda, where he was described as the chief of evil spirits. Though he gained the status of a deva in the later period, he was still associated with raksasas as the half-brother of Ravana in the Mahabharata and the Ramayana.

On one hand Kubera has long been associated with demonic beings, whereas on the other hand, the king of heaven, Indra has always been renowned for his victory over demons, the enemies of gods. Interestingly, the Ahoms, who annexed the Chutiya kingdom in 1524, traced their lineage to Indra in some accounts and called themselves Swargadeo(Lord of heaven): one version associates the Ahom royal family to the union of Indra with a low caste woman due to the curse of Vasistha, and the other version refers to Vasistha’s curse on Indra who caused the flooding of his offerings of worship. Given the Chutiyas’ prolonged struggle with the Ahoms, choosing Kubera as the tutelary deity of their ruling family seems to have a significant meaning. It discreetly connects political reality with the timeless sphere of the gods for asserting the Chutiyas’ authority against the Ahoms. The belief that Kubera is the guardian deity of the north and Indra that of the east was perhaps not an unimportant point in this symbolic configuration of regional powers. Scholars, in fact, ascribe the Chutiya chronicles to the early 19th century, written by some members of the Chutiya aristocracy as an attempt to legitimize their claim. The fact that a slightly different version of the Chutiya royal lineage (mentioning Kiratani goddess) contains no mention of Bhismaka and Kubera suggests that there must have been diverse understandings of their origins before reinventing the past in a specific direction in the early nineteenth century. No legends are made without historical context, and no mythical figures are chosen at random from the past. They are deployed selectively as we saw in the case of Bhīṣmaka(neo-Vaishnavism influence) and Kubera(retaining Asura roots). The narrators, including those of royal genealogies, were ‘aware of their role in transmitting a process that has the implications of being historical and linking the past to the present. The mode of discourse was not altogether arbitrary: it has some coherence in terms of continuity and a larger than local outlook.

Chutiya Bhuyan chieftains

Bhuyans were chiefs of North Indian settlers who migrated to Assam in two separate groups once during the Mleccha rule of the 9th century and again during the Kamatapur rule in the 14th century. They were given land in central Assam by the Indigenous Mleccha and Kamatapur kings in order to promote Sanskritisation in Assam. The first group was called the Baro-Bhuyans. The Baro-Bhuyans settled in the region west of the Chutiya kingdom i.e. parts of the present-day districts of Darrang and Sonitpur. The Bhuyan status at that time was open to royals of any ethnicity and the rule was a confederation type, due to which many Chutiya chieftains of Sonitpur and Lakhimpur districts also adopted the title. These were known as the Chutiya Bhuyans who ruled as sovereign states until Gaurinarayan brought them under the greater Chutiya kingdom in the early 13th century.

Foundation

The founder of the medieval greater Chutiya kingdom was Birpal who claimed descent from a legendary king named Bhirmukka and reigned in 1187. He ruled over 60 clans with his capital on a hill called Swarnagiri and assumed the title of Gayapal. He was succeeded by his son Sonagiripal assuming the title of Gaurinarayan.

Some existing weaponry used by the Sutiya kings

Gaurinarayan alias Ratnadhwajpal was one of the most powerful Sutiya kings. He brought under his sway the tribes of neighboring mountains; the Rangalgiri, the Kalgiri, the Nilgiri, the Chandragiri, and the Dhavalgiri. He conquered the whole northeastern region of Assam which included the areas of present-day Arunachal Pradesh and assumed the title "Lord of Hills". In the year 1224, with a large army, he descended on the valley of Brahmaputra, attacking and deporting another Chutiya king, Bhadrasena, ruler of the Swetagiri. In the expedition, he gained rich booty and many prisoners of war belonging to the Brahmin, Tanti, Sonari, Sutar and Kumar classes and settled them in various parts of the kingdom. He built his capital at Ratnapur (Majuli), hence also called Ratnadhwajpal and used certain techniques to advance the agricultural system in the kingdom. The neighboring Chutiya king, Nyaya Pal surrendered with costly gifts even before he was attacked. To cement the alliance, he married the daughter of Nyayapal. He built a line of forts along the foot of the hills against inroads by the hill tribes and built large tanks and temples for his people. In Kamatapur, when Kamateswar refused his daughter for one of the Gaurinarayan sons, the king marched against him, constructing a road with forts at certain intervals. Alarmed at the energy displayed by his troops, Kamateswar agreed to give one of the princesses in marriage to the Sutiya prince.

These expeditions by Gaurinarayan took Chutiya Kingdom to supremacy to such an extent that after a few years the impact of his power was felt even by the Gauda ruler. The Gauda ruler, possibly Khesav Sen, made friends with Gaurinarayan who sent one of his sons to that country to be educated. Unfortunately, the Sutiya Prince died there and the corpse was sent to Gaurinarayan, who was then engaged in building a new city. He named the city as Sadiya (Sa-Corpse, Diya-Given) which later on became the capital of the Chutiya Kingdom. Extensive remains of buildings and fortifications built during the rule of the Sutiyas near about Sadiya still point to the importance of the region in the past.

During the reign of Ahom king Sutuphaa, there were frequent skirmishes between Ahoms and Sutiyas. In 1376, Sutuphaa was killed by the Sutiya King Jayadhwajpal during a friendly encounter. During the following years, both sides were involved in numerous battles.

Ahom-Sutiya conflicts (1513–1522)

Dhirnarayan alias Dharmadhwajpal, engaged in many battles with the Ahoms. In 1513, in a battle with the Ahoms, king Dhirnarayan attacked the Ahom Kingdom both by land and water. The Ahom were victorious in the battle fought at Dikhoumukh. Later in 1520, the Sutiyas invaded Ahom territory twice; in the second invasion the Sutiyas killed the Ahom commander and were successful in defeating the Ahoms in the battle fought at Dihing.

Downfall

The kingdom saw its weakest state under Nityapal, the husband of Dhirnarayan daughter Sadhani. In 1522, Dhirnarayan due to his growing age passed down his throne to Nityapal. The Sutiya nobilities and ministers resisted the decision of giving away the throne to Nityapal. In 1524, due to Nityapal incapable rulership, the Ahoms taking advantage of this chance attacked a much weaker Chutiya Kingdom. As a partial culmination of the inter-kingdom feud, the Ahoms took Sadiya and killed Nityapal. Further to strengthen their position, the Ahoms set up colonies in the Sutiya country and a number of Brahmins, blacksmiths and artisans were deported from Sadiya to Charaideo. However the Sutiyas went to the countryside where they were still in power and continued their fight against the Ahoms to reclaim their lost territories. The conflict went on for the next 150 years until it finally ended in 1673 when the Sutiyas fell under the domination of the Ahoms and were absorbed into their state.

Rulers (1187–1524)

List of Rulers

#	Years	Reign	Name	Other names
1	1187–1210	23 y	Birpal	Gayapal
2	1210–1250	40 y	Ratnadhwajpal	Gaurinarayan
3	1250–1270	20 y	Vijayadhwajpal	Shivanarayan
4	1270- 1285	15 y	Vikramadhwajpal	Jagatnarayan
5	1285–1305	20 y	Gauradhwajpal	Pramattanarayan
6	1305–1325	20 y	Sankhadhwajpal	Harinarayan
7	1325–1343	18 y	Mayuradhwajpal	Goluknarayan
8	1343–1360	17 y	Jayadhwajpal	Brajnarayan
9	1360–1380	20 y	Karmadhwajpal	Nandeshwar
10	1380–1400	20 y	Satyanarayan	Ratnanarayan
11	1400–1415	20 y	Lakshminarayan	Dharmanarayan
12	1415–1430	15 y	Durlabhanarayan
13	1430–1445	15 y	Muktadharmanarayan
14	1445- 1465	20 y	Pratyakshnarayan
15	1465–1480	15 y	Yakshnarayan
16	1480–1500	20 y	Purandharnarayan
17	1500- 1522	22 y	Dharmadhwajpal	Dhirnarayan
18	1522–1524	2 y	Nityapal	Chandranarayan/Nitai

Geography

The Sutiyas held the areas to the north of Brahmaputra from Parshuram Kund in the east to Vishwanath in the west which represents the areas of Dhemaji district, Lakhimpur district and Sonitpur district of present Assam. To the north, it controlled the present Miri Hills, Abor Hills and the Mishmi Hills (Rangalgiri, Kalgiri, Nilgiri, Chandragiri, Dhavalgiri) in the state of Arunachal Pradesh. To the south of the Brahmaputra, it had parts of Dibrugarh district and almost the entire Tinsukia district under its rule.

Bibliography

• Baruah, S L (1986), A Comprehensive History of Assam, Munshiram Manoharlal
• Prakash, Col. Ved (2007), Encyclopedia of North East India, vol. 2, Atlantic Publishers & Dist.
• Pathak, Guptajit (2008), Assam's history and its graphics, Mittal Publications
• Shin, Jae-Eun (2020). "Descending from demons, ascending to kshatriyas: Genealogical claims and political process in pre-modern Northeast India, The Chutiyas and the Dimasas". The Indian Economic and Social History Review. 57 (1): 49–75. doi:10.1177/0019464619894134. {{cite journal}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)