Dimasa Kingdom | |||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 13th century CE–1832 | |||||||||
 .png){kind=small} Location of Dimasa kingdom around 1500 CE | |||||||||
| Status | Historical kingdom | ||||||||
| Capital | Dimapur Maibang Khaspur (near present-day Silchar) | ||||||||
| Common languages | Dimasa | ||||||||
| Religion | Hinduism Folk religion/Animism | ||||||||
| Government | Tribal hereditary monarchy | ||||||||
| Historical era | Medieval India | ||||||||
• Established | 13th century CE | ||||||||
• Annexed to British India | 1832 | ||||||||
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| Today part of | India (Assam, Nagaland) | ||||||||
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The Dimasa Kingdom[4] also known as Kachari kingdom[5] was a late medieval/early modern kingdom in Assam, Northeast India ruled by Dimasa kings.[6][7][8] The Dimasa kingdom and others (Kamata, Chutiya) that developed in the wake of the Kamarupa kingdom were examples of new states that emerged from indigenous communities in medieval Assam as a result of socio-political transformations in these communities.[9] The British finally annexed the kingdom: the plains in 1832[10] and the hills in 1834.[11] This kingdom gave its name to undivided Cachar district of colonial Assam. And after independence the undivided Cachar district was split into three districts in Assam: Dima Hasao district (formerly North Cachar Hills), Cachar district, Hailakandi district. The Ahom Buranjis called this kingdom Timisa.[12]
In the 18th century, a divine Hindu origin was constructed for the rulers of the Kachari kingdom and it was named Hidimba, and the kings as Hidimbesvar.[13][14] The name Hiḍimbā continued to be used in the official records when the East India Company took over the administration of Cachar.[15]
- ^ "639 Identifier Documentation: aho – ISO 639-3". SIL International (formerly known as the Summer Institute of Linguistics). SIL International. Retrieved 2019-06-29.
Ahom [aho]
- ^ "Population by Religious Communities". Census India – 2001. Ministry of Home Affairs, Government of India. Retrieved 2019-07-01.
Census Data Finder/C Series/Population by Religious Communities
- ^ "Population by religion community – 2011". Census of India, 2011. The Registrar General & Census Commissioner, India. Archived from the original on 25 August 2015.
2011census/C-01/DDW00C-01 MDDS.XLS
- ^ "In the 13th century the Dimasa kingdom extended along the south bank of the Brahmputra, from Dikhou to Kallang and included the Dhansiri Valley and the North Cachar Hills, with its capital at Dimapur." (Bhattacharjee 1987:222)
- ^ All the possibilities of the Kachari kingdom at Sadiya or some other places of Northeast India remain unproven theories until concrete evidence is provided. Therefore, as a term denoting this particular social group, I prefer Dimasa to Kachari in the following discussion.(Shin 2020:64)
- ^ (Shin 2020:61)
- ^ "In the 13th century the Dimasa kingdom extended along the south bank of the Brahmputra, from Dikhou to Kallang and included the Dhansiri Valley and the North Cachar Hills."; "During 16th to 18th century AD they established a State of their own which covered modern South Assam (Barak Valley, parts of Assam Valley and intervening North Cachar Hills) and some parts of Nagaland and Manipur." (Bhattacharjee 1987:222)
- ^ "Dimasa conceive of themselves as the rulers and subjects of the Dimasa kingdom." (Ramirez 2007:93)
- ^ "During the 13th-16th centuries, while these continued to represent the rule over older peasant settlements in western and central Assam, there emerged alongside them also new kingdoms from several tribal bases, then undergoing a process of politico-economic transformation. These kingdoms did not represent mere dynastic changes in an ongoing political sobiety. Rather, they were almost new state formations in a seemingly political vacuum. The Chutiya, Ahom, Dimasa, Jaintia and Koch states were such formations." (Guha 1983:10)
- ^ (Banerjee 1990:69)
- ^ (Banerjee 1990:91)
- ^ "Ahom chronicals attest the existence of "Timisa kings" (khun-timisa) who ruled over a large area of middle Assam, initially from Dimapur on the western foothills of present-day Nagaland." (Ramirez 2007:93)
- ^ (Chatterji 1951:123–124)
- ^ "An important change in the Dimasa political tradition occurred in the mideighteenth century, probably 1745, 1750 or 1755, when the centre of administration was moved from Maibang to Khaspur in the plains of Cachar.87 From this time onwards, the Dimasa rulers used the title ‘the Lord of Heḍamba’ in their own records." (Shin 2020:70)
- ^ (Shin 2020:69f) "The name Hiḍimbā continued to be used in the official records when the East India Company took over the administration of Cachar. This is clear from a seal of the Superintendent of the District of Cachar of 1835. See Gait, Report on the Progress of Historical Research in Assam, p. 10.