Koch dynasty


The Koch dynasty, was a dynasty that ruled regions in the eastern part of the Indian subcontinent, mainly the regions of Assam and Bengal; it is named after the Koch community, emerged as the dominant ruling house in the Kamata kingdom in 1515 after the fall of the Khen dynasty in 1498. The first of the Koch kings, Viswa Singha and then his sons, Nara Narayan as the subsequent king and Chilarai as the general, soon occupied the western portion of the erstwhile Kamarupa Kingdom as well as some regions of south Assam. The dynasty forked for the first time into two major branches that controlled Koch Bihar and Koch Hajo. Koch Bihar became a vassal of the Mughals, whereas Koch Hajo came under Ahom control and was subsequently absorbed. Koch Bihar became a princely state during British rule and was absorbed after Indian independence. The third branch of this dynasty at Khaspur disappeared into the Kachari kingdom.

History

Historical background

After the fall of the Pala dynasty of Kamarupa, the kingdom fractured into different domains in the 12th century. In the east, the Chutiya kingdom emerged on the north and south bank of Brahmaputra River. The Ahom kingdom which emerged in the south bank later occupied and absorbed the larger Chutiya kingdom. To their west was the Kachari kingdom. Sandhya, a ruler of Kamarupanagara moved his capital further west to present-day North Bengal in the middle of the 13th century and the domain he ruled over came to be called Kamata kingdom. The buffer region, between the eastern kingdoms and Kamata was the domain of the Baro-Bhuyans chieftains. Alauddin Husain Shah of Gaur defeated Nilambar of Kamata in 1498, occupied the region and placed his son, Daniyal in charge. Within a few years, the Baro-Bhuyans, led by one Harup Narayan of the Brahmaputra valley defeated, captured and executed Daniyal, and the region lapsed into Bhuyan confederate rule.
Meanwhile, an alliance was formed when a Mech chief, Haridas Mandal, married two sisters Hira and Jira, the daughters of Hajo, a Koch chief. Haridas Mandal's domain was in Chikna Mountains situated between the Sankosh River and the Champabati River in Kokrajhar district of Undivided Goalpara district of Assam. Bisu, who was to later become Viswa Singha, was born to Haridas Mandal and Hira. Later, Brahman pundits created a legend that lord Siva was the father of Viswa Singha to accord legitimacy to the ruler.

Beginning of the Koch dynasty

According to J N Sarkar, Viswa Singha belonged to one of the dominant Koch tribes, which were a collection of Mongoloid tribes. When Bisu, as Viswa Singha was then known, acquired power, the Brahmins found him out and conferred on him the status of the Kshatriya varna; and the subsequent interaction with Brahmans lead to the Hinduization of his tribesmen. The earliest known ancestor of Viswa Singha was his father Haria Mandal, from the Chiknabari village in Undivided Goalpara district, the head of the twelve most powerful Mech families. Haria Mandal was married to Jira and Hira, daughters of a Koch chief named Hajo, after whom Koch Hajo was named. Viswa Singha was the son of Haria Mandal and Hira.

Consolidation of power

Viswa Singha sought the alliance of tribal chiefs against the more powerful Baro-Bhuyans and began his campaign around 1509. Successively, he defeated the Bhuyans of Ouguri, Jhargaon, Karnapur, Phulaguri, Bijni and Pandunath. He was particularly stretched by the Bhuyan of Karnapur, and could defeat him only by a stratagem during Bihu. After subjugating the petty rulers, he announced himself the king of Kamata bounded on the east by Barnadi river and on the west by the Karatoya river in the year 1515. He moved his capital from Chikana to Kamatapur which is just a few miles southeast of the present-day Cooch Behar town.
Viswa Singha's two sons, Naranarayan and Shukladhwaj, the king and the commander-in-chief of the army respectively, took the kingdom to its zenith. Nara Narayan made Raghudev, the son of Chilarai, the governor of Koch Hajo, the eastern portion of the country. After the death of Nara Narayan, Raghudev declared independence. The division of the Kamata kingdom into Koch Bihar and Koch Hajo was permanent.
Nara Narayan was impressed by the bhakti saint Srimanta Sankardeva who became a member of his court in the last three years of his life and who established a Satra in the kingdom.

Kings

Rulers of undivided Koch kingdom

Parikshit Narayana was attacked by the Mughals stationed at Dhaka in alliance with Lakshmi Narayan of Koch Bihar in 1612. His kingdom Koch Hajo, bounded by Sankosh River in the west and Barnadi river in the east, was occupied by the end of that year. Parikshit Narayan was sent to Delhi for an audience with the Mughal Emperor, but his brother Balinarayan escaped and took refuge in the Ahom kingdom. The region to the east of Barnadi and up to the Bharali river was under the control of some Baro-Bhuyan chieftains, but they were soon removed by the Mughals. In 1615 the Mughals, under Syed Hakim and Syed Aba Bakr, attacked the Ahoms but were repelled back to the Barnadi river. The Ahom king, Prataap Singha, then established Balinarayan as a vassal in the newly acquired region between Barnadi and Bharali rivers, and called it Darrang. Balinarayan's descendants continued to rule the region till it was annexed by the British in 1826.
The Bijni rulers reigned between the Sankosh and the Manas rivers, the region immediately to the east of Koch Bihar.
The Barak valley was obtained by Chilarai in 1562 from the Twipra kingdom during his expedition when he subjugated most of the major rulers in Northeast India and established the Khaspur state with a garrison at Brahmapur, that eventually came to be called Khaspur. The Koch rule began with the appointment of Kamal Narayan as the Dewan a couple of years after the establishment of the garrison. Kamalnarayan established eighteen clans of Koch families that took hereditary roles in the state of Khaspur and who came to be known as Dheyans. The independent rule of the Khaspur rulers ended in 1745 when it merged with the kachari kingdom.

The rulers of the Koch kingdom at Khaspur were: