Buranji Explained

Buranjis (Ahom language: ancient writings) are a class of historical chronicles and manuscripts associated with the Ahom kingdom.^[1] There were written initially in the Ahom Language and later in the Assamese language as well. The Buranjis are an example of historical literature which is rare in India^[2] —they bear resemblance to Southeast Asian traditions of historical literature instead.^[3] The Buranjis are generally found in manuscript form (locally called puthi), a number of these manuscripts have been compiled and published especially in the Assamese language.^[4]

They are some of the primary sources of historical information of Assam's medieval past, especially from the 13th century to the colonial times in 1828;^[5] and they have emerged as the core sources for historiography of the region for the pre-colonial period.^[6] The details in the Buranjis regarding the Ahom-Mughal conflicts agree with those in the Mughal chronicles such as Baharistan, Padshahnama, Alamgirnamah and Fathiyyah; and they also provide additional details not found in these Mughal chronicles.

Description

Buranjis were consulted by the king and high officials of the Ahom kingdom for decision making in state matters.^[7] Buranjis are available in manuscript form usually hand-written on oblong pieces of Sanchi bark, though the size and number of folios varies. They are usually densely written on both sides of the folios. Most often the text begins with a legendary account of the establishment of the Ahom kingdom.^[8] Though many such Buranjis have been collected, compiled and published, an unknown number of Buranjis are still in private hands.

Buranji writing tradition

There were two kinds of Buranjis: one maintained by the state (official) and the other maintained by families. The Buranjis themselves claim that the tradition of state Buranjis began with Sukaphaa who led a group of Shans into the Brahmaputra valley in 1228.^[9] On the other hand, the tradition of writing family Buranjis began in the 16th century.^[10] The tradition of writing Buranjis survived more than six hundred years well into the British period till the last decade of 1890s, more than a half century after the demise of the Ahom kingdom, when Padmeswar Naobaisha Phukan wrote a Buranji in the old style incorporating substantial details from the colonial times.^[11]

Official Buranjis were written by scribes under the office of the Likhakar Barua, and these were based on state papers, such as diplomatic correspondences, spy reports, etc.^[12] The Buranjis and the state papers were usually secured in a store or library called Gandhia Bhoral under the supervision of an officer called Gandhia Barua.^[13] Generally one of the three ministers of the Ahom state, the Burhagohain, the Borgohain, or the Borpatragohain, was in command of producing Buranjis, but the junior office of Borbarua took over the power in the 18th century.^[14]

Family Buranjis were written by nobles or by officials who had themselves participated in those event (or by people under their supervision), sometimes anonymously, though the authorship often becomes known.^[15] It became a tradition for respectable Ahom nobles to maintain their own family Buranjis, and as the liberal Ahom polity absorbed new entrants the creation and existence of Buranjis spread to outside the royal archives and to non-Ahom owners.^[16] Non-royal Buranjis enjoyed equal parity with royal Buranjis.^[17] It also became a tradition to read out parts of family Buranjis during Ahom Chaklang marriage ceremonies.^[18]

Textual updating practices

Existing Buranjis were often updated by rulers or authors. Supplemental folios were often appended with additional material to an existing Buranji, resulting in changes in language and calligraphy. Since these manuscripts were often copied or recopied for duplication before printing became available scribal errors were common. Sometimes specific events were omitted, due to either changes in state policies or scribal mistakes—and Ahom nobles would rectify these omissions by rewriting existing Buranjis which remained exclusive resources for the owners. Rulers, nobles and general scholars thus contributed to the corpus of Buranjis. Sometimes these Buranjis were refreshed and updated with the help of external sources such as those from the Tai-Mau and Khamti polities.^[19]

Traditional classifications of Buranjis

Internally, the Buranji chronicles classify themselves as either Lai-lik Buranji (Assamese: Barpahi Buranji) that are expansive and deal with political histories, and Lit Buranji (Assamese: Katha) which deal with single events, such as Ram Singhar Yuddhar Katha. In the 18th century a third class called Chakaripheti Buranji emerged that dealt with Ahom lineages.^[20]

Different reports submitted for archiving also came to be called Buranjis: Chakialar Buranji (reports from chokey, or outpost, officers), Datiyalia Buranji (reports on neighbouring polities from frontier officers), Kataki Buranji (reports from ambassadors or envoys to other polities), Chang-rung Phukonor Buranji (architectural plans and estimates from engineers, dealing with construction of maidams, bridges, temples, roads, ramparts, excavation of tanks, etc.), and Satria Buranji (report on the Satras).^[21]

Ahom buranjis

Buranjis written in the Ahom language span a period of 400 to 600 years and ended two centuries ago when the last of the speakers of the language died out.^[22] The Ahom script used in these Buranjis is an older Shan writing system that was not fully developed to include diacritics to denote the different tones or represent proto-Tai voiceless and voiced distinctions.^[23] Since the Ahom language has not been spoken for about two hundred years now^[24] reading them today involves heavy use of reconstructions.^[25]

Assamese buranjis

The first Assamese Buranjis were written during the reign of Suhungmung .^[26] A manuscript called Swarga Narayan Maharajar Akhyan, included in the published compilation Deodhai Asam Buranji, is dated 1526 and considered as the oldest Assamese Buranji. The language of the Assamese Buranjis, on the other hand, formed the template for the standard literary language in the late-19th century. Assamese Buranjis used the Garhgaya style of writing—one of three different styles of the Bengali-Assamese script prevalent between the 17th and 19th centuries in Assam. The Assamese of the Buranjis forms its own standard, and is a close precursor of the modern Assamese standard.^[27]

Even though the Indo-Aryan rooted word for history is itihash derived from the class of written records called Itihasa, the word buranji is used instead for "history" in the Assamese language.^[28]

Loss

During the reign of Rajeswar Singha, Kirti Chandra Borbarua had many Buranjis destroyed because he suspected they contained information on his lowly birth.^[29]

Much of the official Buranjis have been lost due to acts of nature, war,^[30] and a major part of the official Buranjis was lost during the 19th century Burmese invasion of Assam.

Buranjis in historiography

The Buranji's contained within themselves the instinct of historiography.^[31] Nevertheless they were written for state purposes of the Ahom kingdom, and they served primarily the interests of the Ahom dynasty followed by those of the courtiers and they were not the records of the people in general.^[32] Nevertheless, the practice of writing Buranjis in the older tradition survived the downfall of the Ahom kingdom and persisted till the 1890s.^[11] Subsequently, Buranjis themselves became sources for new historiography.

Pre-colonial

John Peter Wade, a medical officer of the East India Company, accompanied Captain Welsh in his expedition into the Ahom kingdom (1792–1794) to put down the Moamoria rebellion.^[33] He wrote his report, and from his notes, published his work Memories of the Reign of Swargee Deo Gowrinath Singh, Late Monarch of Assam some time after 1796.^{[34] [35]} During his stay in Guwahati he encountered the king's scholar-bureaucrats and was shown a copy of an Ahom Buranji and he took the help of Ahom priests to translate the preamble into English.^[36] suggests that Wade eventually translated three discrete Assamese Buranjis, though it is not known which ones, or who his Assamese collaborators were.

Colonial

The Ahom kingdom came under East India Company rule in 1826 following the First Anglo-Burmese War and the Treaty of Yandaboo, in which the invading Burmese military was pushed away. In 1833 the EIC established a protectorate under a past Ahom king, Purandar Singha. Following his instructions Kashinath Tamuli-Phukan wrote Assam Buranji in 1835 before the protectorate was dismantled. Buranji writing continued among remnant and scions of past Ahom officialdom, the chief among them was Harakanta Barua who expanded Kashinath Tamuli-Phukan's Buranji, and Padmeshwar Naobaisha Phukan who wrote Assam Buranji the 1890s—the last Buranji written in the older tradition.^[11]

In parallel a newly emerging colonial elite began historiography in styles that departed from the Buranji style,^[37] but still were called Buranjis. In 1829 Haliram Dhekial Phukan, an erstwhile Ahom officer who successfully transitioned into British officialdom, published Assam Desher Itihash yani ("or") Assam Buranji^{[38] [39]} —written in a hybrid Assamese, Sanskrit, and Bengali language, it drew deeply from the traditional Buranji material and format, but broke away from it by being mindful of early Indian historiographic traditions.^{[40] [41]} Gunabhiram Barua's work Assam Buranji (1887) too departed significantly from the Buranji style though Maniram Dewan's Buranji-Bibekratna hewed much closer.

Gait's A History of Assam

In 1894 Charles Lyall, the then Chief Commissioner of Assam and a keen ethnologist, charged Edward Gait, a colonial officer and a keen historian, to research Assam's pre-colonial past.^[42] Gait implemented an elaborate plan to collect local historical sources: coins, inscriptions, historical documents, quasi-historical writings, religious works and traditions;^[43] and created a team of native collaborators from among his junior colonial officers—Hemchandra Goswami, Golap Chandra Barua, Gunahash Goswami, Madhab Chandra Bordoloi, and Rajanikanta Bordoloi among others.^[44] Among Buranjis, he collected six Ahom-language manuscripts and eleven Assamese-language manuscripts. He charged Golap Chandra Barua to learn the Ahom language from a team of Ahom priests who purportedly knew the language.^[45]

Gait devised a method to check for historicity—he first convinced himself that Golap Barua did learn the language.^[46] He then checked for consistency within the Ahom and the Assamese Buranji manuscripts and with sources from Mughal sources that were available at that time. He further collated all the dates available in the Buranjis and checked them against those in the 70 Ahoms coins, 48 copper plates, 9 rock, 28 temple and 6 canon inscriptions that he had collected. Thus convinced with the historicity of the Buranjis,^[47] A History of Assam was finally published in 1906.^[48]

Gait's A History of Assam did not follow the colonial mode of historiography—it used the Buranjis sympathetically, and it avoided the ancient/medieval/modern periodisation then common in Indian historiography.^[49] It elevated the stature of the Buranjis as trusted and reliable historical sources.^[50] The ready acceptance of the historicity of Buranjis, both by native and British researchers, was in sharp contrast to the reception of other pre-colonial documents, such as the kulagranthas of Bengal.^[51]

Nationalist response—Kamarupa Anusandhan Samiti

The Buranji-based A History of Assam came under criticism from nationalists represented by the Kamarupa Anusandhan Samiti (English: Assam Research Society), that emerged in 1912 amidst the annual convention of the Uttar Bangia Sahitya Parishad (English: North Bengal Literary Society).^[52] The society consisted of mostly Sanskrit scholars interested in the study of old inscriptions,^[53] and a dominant section of it was Bengali.^[54] Foremost among these scholars was Padmanath Bhattacharya, professor of Sanskrit and History at Cotton College,^[55] who critiqued Gait on coloniality, his basic flaws in the use of historical evidence, and his fundamental historical assumptions,^[56] primarily Gait's ignoring the pre-Ahom period.^[57] Bhattacharya's 1931 work Kamarupa Sasanawali formed the standard for studying pre-Ahom Kamarupa.^[58] This effort ultimately resulted in Kanaklal Barua's Early History of Kamarupa (1933) a seminal work that emerged as an authoritative alternative to Gait's historiography.^[59] Ignoring the tribal genealogy of Assam, this work focused on myths and legends from Sanskrit epics and inscriptions and Assam's Hindu past,^[60] departed strongly from Gait's work, and placed Assam in the cultural and political history of India.^[61]

Padmanath Bhattacharya's 1931 Kamarupa Sasanavali itself became the target of criticism—from Assamese nationalists such as Laksminath Bezbaruah for failing to differentiate Assamese and Bengali.^[62] He was also criticised for correcting the Sanskrit while transcribing sources;^[63] and in 1978 Mukunda Madhav Sharma reported that the errors in Sanskrit in the inscriptions displayed that alongside Sanskrit there were Austroasiatic and Tibeto-Burman languages being used in Kamarupa as well as a middle indo-Aryan local prakrit that was progressing towards the modern Assamese language.^[64] In 1981 the Assam Publication Board republished a Kamarupa Sasanawvali, compiled and edited by Dimbeswar Sharma, without acknowledging the 1931 edition.^[65]

Sarkar—History of Aurangzib

After Gait, Jadunath Sarkar made further critical use of Buranjis for historiography—in the volume III of his tome History of Aurangzib (1916), Jadunath Sarkar used the Buranjis, especially the Buranji from Khunlung and Khunlai, to fill in details of the Koch-Mughal relations during the pre-Mir Jumla II period and to crosscheck and facts given in the Buranji and the Persian chronicles.^[66]

Department of Historical and Antiquarian Studies

The Department of Historical and Antiquarian Studies (DHAS) was established in 1928 for historical research following a government grant sanctioned by J R Cunningham.^[67] Among its many primary goals, one was to acquire and archive manuscripts and copies of original documents for further historical research.^[68] S K Bhuyan, who was earlier with the KAS,^[69] joined DHAS as an honorary assistant director;^[70] and under his leadership the DHAS began to systematically collect Buranjis.^[71] A team of DHAS office assistants either procured documents by correspondence, or toured local regions to collect, transcribe and archive manuscripts and documents.^[72] By 1978 the DHAS had collected 2000 original manuscripts and 300 transcripts.^[73]

Published Buranjis

Though the Buranjis were originally un-printed manuscripts what is commonly understood as Buranjis are the printed ones available today.^[74] Many of these printed Buranjis today are reproductions of single manuscripts, while many others were compilations of individual manuscripts arranged in a particular order.

The earliest Buranjis to be seen in print were those published serially in the Orunodoi magazine in the middle of the 19th century; this was followed in the 20th century by publications of single and compiled Buranjis –the first two Buranjis were edited by native collaborators of Edward Gait: the Purani Asam Buranji, edited by Hemchandra Goswami and published by Kamarupa Anusandhan Samita, and Ahom Buranji, a bilingual Ahom-English Buranji translated by Golap Chandra Barua and published in 1930.

Published Buranjis—S K Bhuyan

Buranjis edited by S K Bhuyan! Year! Name! Manuscripts

1930	Assam Buranji	Single
1930	Kamrupar Buranji	Multiple
1932	Tunkgkhungiya Buranji	Multiple
1932	Deodhai Assam Buranji	Multiple
1932	Assamar Padya Buranji	Multiple
1935	Padshah Buranji	Multiple
1936	Kachari Buranji	Multiple
1937	Jayantia Buranji	Multiple
1937	Tripura Buranji	Single
1945	Assam Buranji	Single
1960	Satsari Buranji	Multiple

S K Bhuyan compiled, collated, and edited a number of single and multiple manuscript Buranjis in Assamese—nine between 1930 and 1938 and one each in 1945 and 1960 most of which were published by the DHAS.^[75] Bhuyan and others scholars in Assam regarded Buranjis as important historical elements and he attempted to bring them to the general population directly.^{[76] [77]} Though Bhuyan edited a few single-sourced Buranjis, most of his works were editions of multiple-sources that have been compiled to form a single narrative.^[78] Though Bhuyan rearranged the texts in a linear fashion the published texts were true reproductions that maintained the original orthography and syntax with no attempt at interpretation; and he followed a consistent and transparent methodology of numbering paragraphs in all his Buranjis that enabled researchers to easily trace back any portion of the text to the original archived sources.^{[79] [80] [81]} Bhuyan's Buranji narratives could be classed into three themes: Ahom polity, Ahom-Mughal relations, and Ahom-Neighbour relations.^[82] Over time, especially in post-colonial Assam, the standard reference to Buranjis were to these easily accessible published Buranjis which came to represent the original manuscript Buranjis.^[83] Though Bhuyan's editorial methodology is known his textual criticism is either superficial or not known very well;^[84] he filled gaps in the narrative by interpolations from different sources, but the inconsistencies were not addressed in his work.^[85]

Post-Colonial

Following an assurance of financial support from the ICSSR, New Delhi, the Publication Board, Assam, engaged H K Barpujari to edit a multi-volume comprehensive history of Assam covering the prehistoric times to 1947. Barpujari envisioned "that in a project of national importance the best talents of the country need be utilised, and that the volumes should represent the latest researchers on the subject on the model adopted in Indian historical series published by the Cambridge University Press."

Subsequently, Barpujari engaged primarily D C Sircar, among others, to write on the period when Kamarupa was prevalent, which was of particular interest to the Kamarupa Anusandhan Samiti historians; and primarily Jagadish Narayan Sarkar among others, to write on the medieval period. Sarkar had earlier used the Buranjis as source for a number of his past works, but the scope of the present work included a comprehensive historiography—and the choice fell on him because of his command over Persian, Assamese, Bengali etc. and his familiarity with sources in these languages.^[86]

Buranjis in Comprehensive History of Assam

According to the Ahom Buranji from Khunlung and Khunlai, the Buranji used in 1916 by Jadunath Sarkar, provides accurate details and chronology of the Ahom-Mughal interactions and that they agree with the information found in the Baharistan, Padshahnama, Alamgirnamah and Fathiyyah; further it provides additional details on the quick changes in the Ahom and Mughal fortunes in the post Mir Jumla period which are not available in the Persian sources.^[87] The information in this manuscript is supplemented by those in the Ahom Buranji which was edited, translated, and eventually published by G C Barua in 1930.^[88] These three Buranjis together provide exhaustive and minute details in the Ahom-Mughal relationship—that agree with each other and also with the Persian sources generally.^[89] Among other Buranjis, the Asam Buranji from Khunlung to Gadadhar Simha follows the style of Purani Asam Buranji but provides additional details and elaborations in certain sections.^[90]

The Buranji obtained from Sukumar Mahanta (published 1945) has details on earlier invasions from Bengal—Turbak, Alauddin Husain Shah, etc.—and specifically has information on social, religious, and administrative changes during the period this Buranji covered, which was from the earliest rulers to Gadadhar Singha .^[91]

Textual relationships of some Buranjis

The first Buranji to be printed was Assam Buranji by Kashinath Tamuli Phukan, which was published by the American Baptist Mission in 1848.^[92] Kashinath Tamuli Phukan wrote this Buranji under the instructions of the then Ahom king Purandar Singha and his minister Radhanath Barbarua.^[93] Kashinath Tamuli Phukan's Buranji was further expanded, in the Buranji tradition, by Harakanta Baruah (1818–1900) when he was an officer of the British colonial government using material from his personal manuscript library.^[94] The Harakanta Baruah version was edited in its near-original form by S K Bhuyan and published by DHAS in 1930 as Assam Buranji.^[95]

The earliest Ahom-language Buranjis published was one that covered the period from Khunlung-Khunlai to the death of Sutingphaa in 1648—its translation in Assamese language appeared in the magazine Orunodoi from 1850-1852 in serial form under the name Purani Asam Buranji. The text from Orunodoi was later compiled and edited by S K Bhuyan and included in the 1931 published Deodhai Asam Buranji.^[96] The American Baptist Mission copy was supplemented by another that was an even earlier translation of the same original Ahom manuscript.^[98] The first copy has Saka equivalents in parentheses to the Ahom laklis which were compared to and cross-checked against the one compiled earlier by Gait.

A selected list of Buranjis

A selected list of Buranjis

Name	Author	1st Edition	Editor/Translator	Publisher
Kachari Buranji		1936		DHAS
Jayantia Buranji		1937	S K Bhuyan	DHAS
Assam Buranji	Harakanta Sadar Amin	1930	S K Bhuyan	DHAS
Kamrupar Buranji		1930	S K Bhuyan	DHAS
Deodhai Assam Buranji		1932	S K Bhuyan	DHAS
Tungkhungia Buranji	Srinath Duara Barbarua	1932	S K Bhuyan	DHAS
Asamar Padya Buranji	Dutiram Hazarika and Visvesvar Vaidyadhipa	1932	S K Bhuyan	DHAS
Tripura Buranji	Ratna Kandali and Arjun Das (1724)	1938	S K Bhuyan	DHAS
Assam Buranji		1938	S K Dutta	DHAS
Assam Buranji	(Sukumar Mahanta)^[99]	1945	S K Bhuyan	DHAS
Assam Buranji Sara	Kashinath Tamuli Phukan	1944	P C Choudhury	DHAS
Ahom Buranji		1930	Golap Chandra Barua (trans. English)
Ahom Buranji^[100]		1996	Renu Wichasin (trans. Thai)
Purani Asam Buranji		1922	Hem Chandra Goswami	KAS
Satsari Assam Buranji		1960	S K Bhuyan	GU
Padshah Buranji		1935	S K Bhuyan	KAS

References

• • • Book: Barua, B K. Early Assamese Prose. 1953. Aspects of Early Assamese Literature. Kakati. Banikanta. 124–147. Guwahati. Gauhati University, Assam. 12 February 2018 .
  • Book: Baruah, Manjeet . Frontier Cultures: A Social History of Assamese Literature . 2012 . Routledge . 978-0-415-50080-7.
• Book: Bhuyan . S K . Mahesh Chandra . Bora . Deodhai Asam Buranji . DVS Publishers . 5th [1st English translation] . 2022 . 1932 . Guwahati, Assam . Assamese, English. 978-93-85839-60-3.
• Book: Gait, Edward A . 1926 . 1906 . Introduction to First Edition . A History of Assam . Thacker, Spink & Co . Calcutta and Simla.
• Book: Chatterjee, Partha . Introduction: History in the Vernacular . Aquil . Raziuddin . Chatterjee . Partha . History in the Vernacular . 2008 . Ranikhet . Permanent Black. 1–24 . 978-81-7824-301-6.
  • Book: Saikia. Yasmin. Fragmented Memories: Struggling to be Tai-Ahom in India. 2004. Duke University Press. 082238616X. en.
• Hartmann. John F.. Phongsawadan Tai-Ahom: Ahom Buranji [Tai-Ahom Chronicles], 2 Vols. Transcribed and translated by Renu Wichasin. Bangkok: Amarin Printing and Publishing Ltd. Pp. xxiv, 993 [Continuous Pagination]. Map, Photos, Tables, Glossary. [In Thai]. Journal of Southeast Asian Studies. 7 April 2011. 28. 1. 227–229. 10.1017/S002246340001554X. 162440951 .
• 2021 . Narzary . Dharitri . Buranjis and the Asian History Writing Tradition . History and Sociology of South Asia . 15 . 1–2 . 7–27 . 10.1177/22308075221077716. 247544118 .
• Book: Purkayastha, Sudeshna . Restructuring the Past in Early-Twentieth-Century Assam: Historiography and Surya Kumar Bhuyan . Aquil . Raziuddin . Chatterjee . Partha . History in the Vernacular . 2008 . Ranikhet . Permanent Black. 172–208 . 978-81-7824-301-6.
• 2008. Saikia. Arupjyoti. History, buranjis and nation: Suryya Kumar Bhuyan's histories in twentieth-century Assam. The Indian Economic and Social History Review. 45. 4. 473–507 . 10.1177/001946460804500401. 144145900 .
• Book: Saikia, Arupjyoti . CITEREFSaikia2008b . Gait's Way . Aquil . Raziuddin . Chatterjee . Partha . History in the Vernacular . 2008 . Ranikhet . Permanent Black. 142–171 . 978-81-7824-301-6.
• Book: Saikia, Arupjyoti . Geographical Exploration and Historical Investigation: John Peter Wade in Assam . Bhattacharya . Neeladri . Pachuau . Joy L.K. . Landscape, Culture, and Belonging: Writing the History of Northeast India . 2019 . Cambridge University Press . 110–127 . 978-1-108-48129-8.
• Book: Saikia, Yasmin . Some Thoughts on Professor Surya Kumar Bhuyan as an Editor of Assamese Buranjis . Thakuria . Surendramohan . Dr. Surya Kumar Bhuyan: A Centenary Volume . 31–32 .
• Book: Sarkar, J. N. . The Sources . H K Barpujari . The Comprehensive History of Assam . II . 1992 . Assam . Publication Board. 1–34.
• Book: Sharma, Jayeeta . Heroes for our Times: Assam’s Lachit, India’s Missile Man . 2004 . The Politics of Cultural Mobilization in India . Zavos . John . Wyatt . Andrew . Hewitt . Vernon . 166–194 . New Delhi . Oxford University Press . 0-19-566801-4.
• Book: Sharma, Mukunda Madhava. Inscriptions of Ancient Assam. Gauhati University. 1978. Guwahati, Assam .

Notes and References

1. "With the coming of the Ahoms, begins a procedure of keeping records of all events of the time, in a class of documents called Buranjis which are so numerous and voluminous that they overshadow the other primary sources like archaeology and numismatics."
2. "The oft-repeated complaint of the absence of any historical literature in India has to be qualified not only by Kalhana's Rajatarangini in Kashmir but also by Assamese historical literature."
3. "The established fact is that the buranji tradition bore a marked similarity with the Southeast Asian tradition of historical chronicles."
4. "A number of Buranjis written in Assamese have been published by the Department of Historical and Antiquarian Studies, Assam."
5. "(T)he primary sources of information of medieval Assam from the thirteenth century onward may broadly be classified under the heads: Ahom and Assamese Buranjis, contemporary chronicles, memoirs and farmans in Persian, letters in Assamese in Persian, archaeological, epigraphic and numismatic sources, accounts of foreign travellers and East-India Company's reports and records."
6. "However, the question of traditions of history writing in eastern India is complicated by the presence of a distinctly north-eastern genre called the buranji...Yet it is present not only in Assam, where it has become a central source for the writing of the history of pre-colonial Assam."
7. "The most general use of these works was within the limited elites of the Ahom administration. The nobility, apart from the king, consulted them to arrive at decisions relating to affairs of the state."
8. "Oblong strips of Sanchi bark were used to prepare these manuscripts. The size and numbers of folios varied. Normally both sides of the folios contained written lines. The manuscript of one such buranji of 1804 was enclosed in a painted wooden box made of one piece of wood.22 It contained 85 folios or 170 pages, and each folio measured four inches by 12½ inches.23 Folios were packed with ten lines of ‘closely packed writing on each page’.24 Another buranji contained 59 folios. Each of them measured 2½ inches by 10¼ inches, and contained five to seven lines.25 In most instances the text begins with narratives, encapsulated in a few legends, of the early days of the establishment of the Ahom kingdom."
9. "The official type trace their genesis to the appearance of the Tai-Mau chieftain Sukapha and a band of some 10,000 followers in Sadyia, a point in the northern reaches of the Bhramaputra Valley in the reputed year of 1228 A.D."
10. "According to Wichasin, there are two types of Tai-Ahom chronicles: official and family. The latter were begun in the sixteenth century A.D."
11. "The system of compilation of buranjis continued to be practised till the last decades of the nineteenth century. The content and form of the later buranjis did not change substantially. In the 1890s, Padmeswar Naobaisha Phukan, a successor of the Ahom nobility, wrote an Assam buranji. The text was a careful reproduction of the pre-colonial chronicles, to which Phukan added substantial narratives of contemporary events."
12. "Information and facts mentioned in a buranji emerged after consulting state papers.... Official communications, letters of ambassadors or spy reports were significant parts of these state papers."
13. "(B)uranjis were closely guarded, at least the official ones, the reason why they were kept in the Gandhia Bhoral (store house/library) under the supervision of an Ahom official called Gandhia Barua."
14. "One of the three principal functionaries of the Ahom ministry supervised the function of chronicling royal events. From the middle of the eighteenth century, another superior executive called Barbaruah and ranked below a minister, usurped the function of producing buranjis."
15. "Quite often, the actual participants in events were fortunate enough to write these buranjis. Rarely was any mention made of the author, who was indicated only at a later period. (This absence did not deter modern historians from accepting the legitimacy of these texts as fundamental historical evidence)."
16. "It was a tradition of the Ahoms that one who belonged to the nobility should possess a buranji. In order to prove noble ancestry, the Ahoms wrote buranjis for themselves. Newly entering groups thus followed their royal counterparts and also had buranjis written. These then made them free from the official narrative constraints of the Gandhia Bharal (royal archives)."
17. "private buranjis were treated at par with government buranjis in terms of authenticity. Since the buranjis were regarded as authentic records, they came to acquire social authority in themselves...certain pages in buranjis bear testimony to the disgracing of an Ahom minister, Kirtichandra Barbarua. Ultimately, the buranjis became his target: the minister burnt a large number of buranjis that stamped him as jalambata (net-maker), indicating his low ancestry."
18. "In the Ahom system of chaklang marriages, for instance, pages from buranjis were read out publicly to confirm the social status of the families concerned."
19. "The official chronicles from that early period were subsequently "refreshed" with chronicles of Tai-Mau and Khamti, with whom the Tai-Ahom maintained contact."
20. "Numali Borgohain in the reign of Rajeswar Singha wrote a chronicle entitled Chakaripheti Buranji [on the origin and lineages of Ahom families] which described Kirtichandra Barbarua's father Rup Chandra as having been brought up in a Muslim family of the Jalambata khel. Kirtichandra took offence in the comment and influenced the king to bring all buranjis to his notice and burn those containing undesireable comments on Ahom families. Henceforth, any buranji treating Ahom lineage was styled as Chakaripheti buranji."

21. Language

    Buranjis were written in the Ahom language, but since the 16th century they came to be increasingly written in the Assamese language—and Ahom Buranji manuscripts have become rare.

22. "Ahom written history covered a span of some 400-600 years; it effectively ended with the dying off of the last speakers two centuries ago and has remained fossilized in the pages of their chronicles."
23. "Because Tai-Ahom, like other older "Shan" writing systems, was never fully developed...there are no written diacritics to indicate tones, as in Standard Thai, and a single Ahom consonant can represent both proto-Tai voiceless and voiced distinctions made in the Thai, Lanna,and Lao writing systems."
24. "There are Tai-Ahom Buranji chronicles written primarily in a Tai language called Ahom, not spoken for some 200 years"
25. "...reading [Ahom manuscripts] today is really an exhausting exercise in reconstruction."
26. "It was in the reign of Suhungmung [...] that Buranjis in Assamese were first written."
27. "The prose of the Burañjīs is a standardized literary prose in the true sense of the term. It is through this prose that Arabic and Persian elements crept into the language in abundance. This prose comes very near to the literary language of the modern period."
28. "The etymological meaning of 'buranji' came to be represented as synonymous with that of both 'history' and 'itihash'."
29. "Thus under Rajeswar Simha. (1751-69), Kirtichandra Barbarua ordered the destruction of innumerable Buranjis as some of these recorded his low origin."
30. "These official records were kept in Ahom archives, most of which were lost or destroyed by natural forces or in wars."
31. "The Buranjis possess both strong and weak points. As regards their excellence, we may first note that the conception of historiography among the Buranji-writers was quite high as is clear from the norms which they followed."
32. "Again the Buranjis were the records not so much of the people as of the kings and their courtiers, their wars and conquests, successes and failures. King Siva Simha (1714-44) directed the chronicler that ‘histories of his predecessors should be compiled, that succession of Ahom monarch mentioned in detail (and) that history should only contain the names and transactions of the Swargadeos."
33. "In the early 1790s, the Ahom kingdom was in the midst of a series of civil wars. Dethroned in the uprising, the Ahom king turned to the EIC for help. Lord Cornwallis, as Governor General of Bengal, accepted the request and sent Captain Welsh to control the civil war in the province." ; "By 1792, Wade decided to move to Calcutta to practise medicine. A year later he was asked to accompany Captain Welsh to Assam as a physician and naturalist. Company officials expected that a physician trained in the basic sciences would be competent to report on the natural resources of the region."
34. "It was only in 1796 that he could arrange his notes into a manuscript entitled Memories of the Reign of Swargee Deo Gowrinath Singh, Late Monarch of Assam. The manuscript was published after a couple of years."
35. "Wade, a medical practitioner with the East India Company, complied a history of Assam based on his study of Assamese buranjis in the early decade of the nineteenth century. The manuscript was never published in his lifetime."
36. "Wade’s search for local texts written in the Ahom language led him to discover the buranjis of the Ahom kingdom. It is possible that Wade was shown copies of a buranji by one of the Ahom ministers in Guwahati... So he took the helpof Ahom priests to translate the preambles of the buranji into English."
37. "On the other hand, the new colonial elites produced by the colonial state also began to write about the past—but in a new style."
38. "In 1829 Haliram Dhekial Phukan, the first Assamese historian of modern times, had published his history of Assam under the title Assam Desher Itihashyani Assam Buranji. Thus, in the first half of the nineteenth century the Assamese intelligentsia faced an etymological dilemma which finally ended with the general acceptance of buranji as the local vernacular equivalent of itihash, history."
39. "One of the prominent officials who successfully shifted from Ahom to British service, Haliram Dhekial Phukan, wrote a workcalled Assam Desher Itihas yani (‘or’) Assam Buranji in 1829...However, Haliram’s work, written as it was in Bengali, to receive greater prominence in Kolkata circles, still represents a moment when the appropriation of the buranji genre into regional identity discourses had not quite come about."
40. "But even as he drew profusely from the prevalent buranji tradition of Assam and the Ahom period, Haliram was attentive to the cultural world of contemporary Bengal. The arrangement of his themes came closer to the buranji, but his treatment of the distant past rested undoubtedly on the foundations of the early-nineteenth-century historical tradition."
41. "Writing in a hybrid of Assamese, Sanskrit, and Bengali, Haliram drew heavily from the contemporary oral traditions of Assam and Bengal..."
42. "In July 1894 Charles Lyall, the area's chief commissioner, while preparing a note on the future of historical research in Assam, spelled out the fear within the colonial administration of losing historical documents belonging primarily to the Ahom period: various natural conditions were hostile. Edward Gait had already prepared a synopsis of books in the possession of the Deodhais—the Ahom royal priests— and this attracted the attention of Lyall."
43. "Armed with official sanction, Gait created an elaborate scheme to collect Assam's historical documents. He divided the historical sources into six categories, viz. coins, inscriptions, historical documents, quasi-historical writings, religious works, and traditions."
44. "Gait had requisitioned the service of many of his juniors to help him in the collection and translation of local historical records. Hem Chandra Goswami, Golap Chandra Barua, Gunahash Goswami, Madhab Chandra Bordoloi, and Rajani Kanta Bordoloi were some of these close associates. Most collaborators worked in the colonial administration, but had a very different social 'commitment'."
45. "A committee of five Deodhais was appointed to teach the Tai Ahom language to Golap Chandra Barua and assist him in translating the buranjis. Baruah also acknowledged the help of Deodhais in teaching him the Tai language. See Golap Chandra Barua, 'Preface', in Ahom Buranji."
46. "Having no knowledge of the Ahom language myself I have had to rely entirely on the translation made by this Assamese gentleman, but I have every confidence in the accuracy of his work. I tested his knowledge in Ahom in various ways and found it satisfactory..."
47. "Regarding the historicity of the buranjis, he suggested 'it was proved not only by the way in which they support each other, but also by the confirmation which is afforded by the narratives of Muhamaddan writers wherever these are available for comparison.' Gait noted that he preferred to accept the dates given in the buranjis because they 'are the original records, and are all in complete accord.' Other archaeological records, such as coins and rock inscriptions, also proved, he said, the historicity of buranjis."
48. "Gait completed the book at the turn of the twentieth century. First published in London by Thacker, Spink and Company in 1906"
49. "Gait's sympathetic appreciation and appropriation of vernacular historical sources is remarkable in being sharply opposed to the powerful colonial mode of history writing of the time. His historical periodization differed from that in the existing colonial model. In fact, Gait completely discarded Mill's notion of the temporal phases of Indian history and avoided periodization in terms of ancient, medieval, and modern."
50. "Gait transformed the pre-colonial buranjis into trusted and reliable historical documents on the basis of which any European historian could work."
51. "The confidence in buranji both as a source of national pride and as a true representative of the past was markedly different from the intellectual experience of such pre-colonial texts in Bengal. This was particularly true for the kulagranthas—the pre-colonial Bengali genealogical manuscripts."
52. "In 1912, in the annual general conference of the Uttar Bangia Sahitya Parisad, a group of Assamese scholars formed the Kamrup Anusandhan Samiti, whose primary responsibility was to unearth the golden past of Assam."
53. "The Kamarupa Anusandhan Samiti (KAS) pioneered a collective pursuit of the past. A scholarly body, it comprised a number of amateur scholars with a passion for historical subjects."; "Their credentials as scholars of Sanskrit were well-known, and they were familiar faces in the social life of Assam. Their continued interest in antiquarian studies was derived from their interest in the study of Sanskrit, as well as the textual study of copper-plate inscriptions."
54. "The details of KAS members are mentioned in a prospectus published by KAS in 1916. The majority of members were dominated by Bengali scholars. Amongst them were Dhireswaraacharya Kabiratna, Ananda Chandra Vedantabagish, Sibnath Smrititirtha, Padmanath Bhattacharya Bidyabinode, and Taranath Kabyabinode. Amongst the Assamese were Pratap Chandra Goswami, Uttam Chandra Barooah and Govinda Chandra Sarma. The proposal for such a platform came from Khan Chowdhuri Amanat Ulla Ahmed of Cooch Behar. Years later, Ahmed pioneered local research by publishing the well-known Cooch Beharor Itihas."
55. "Born in Sylhet in 1868, Padmanath Bhattacharya was a professor of Sanskrit and History in Cotton College, Assam."
56. "Padmanath Bhattacharya was one of the first critics of A History of Assam. The importance of critiques such as his is, first, that it represented the early phase of the critique of coloniality. Some of the basic flaws in Gait's use of evidence were pinpointed. The critique also refuted some of Gait's fundamental historical assumptions."
57. "His main contention was that Gait had ignored a rich legacy of state formation in Assam prior to the establishment of the Ahom dynasty."
58. "The political structure of ancient Kamrup had been the subject of scholarly evaluation ever since the publication of Kamarupa Sasanawali by Padmanath Bhattacharya. Published in 1931, this work presented the rationale for studying the history of Kamrup."
59. "Early History of Kamarupa (EHK) was an authoritative work that contested many of the claims made by Gait. Brought up within the ethos of satras, Kanaklal Baruah, who held the rank of extra-assistant commissioner, worked on this project for many years before his death."
60. "The tribal genealogy of the region remained outside the purview of this historical reconstruction. Rather, the chronology on which it focused implied the linear growth of a Hindu past. Myths and legends culled from the Mahabharata gave credence to the ancient past of Kamrup."
61. "It marked a departure from the representation of the history of Assam found in the pages of Gait's History. Thee book not only claimed to rectify the wrongs done by Gait but also gave Assam a long-awaited place in the larger narrative of Indian cultural and political history."
62. "Bhattacharya was strongly criticised by Lakshminath Bezbarua for his alleged failure to make a correct appraisal of the difference between the Assamese and Bengali languages."
63. "In 1931 he published Kamarupa Sasawanli, embodying the texts of several copper-plate inscriptions found in Assam and neighbouring regions, but central to the polity and society of ancient Kamarupa. Bhattacharya made several corrections to the script, incurring severe condemnation from later scholars."
64. "Bhattacharya presents in the main body of the book a completely edited reading of the charters so as to make the text free from orthographical irregularities...with indication of the corrupt forms in the footnotes. This modification of the text is much resented by B M Barua and D Neog... This survey would suffice to show that in Ancient Assam there were three languages viz. (1) Sanskrit as the official language and the language of the learned few, (2) Non-Aryan tribal languages of the Austric and Tibeto-Burman families, and (3) a local variety of Prakrit (ie a MIA) wherefrom, in course of time, the modern Assamese language as a MIL, emerged.
65. "In 1981, the influential Assam Publication Board published another version of Kamarupa Sasawanli, complied and edited by Dimbeswar Sarma; however, no acknowledgement was made of Bhattachayra’s edition."
66. "In his review of the Koch-Mughal relations (Aurangzib, iii, 1916) in the pre-Mir Jumla period, Jadunath Sarkar has improved upon Gait by making an independent and synthetic study of the then available Buranjis and contemporary Persian sources."
67. "The DHAS owed its origin to a sanction of grant by British official J.R. Cunningham who as Director of Public Instructions in January 1928 to establish an institute to take up historical research in the province."
68. "Among its ten stated objectives, the primary objective of the DHAS was to search for the recovery and acquisition of modern historical works or ancient historical classics; the compilation of historical works; receiving and collation of historical information from various sources; and editing historical works. Another objective formed a crucial dimension in the professionalisation of historical research, that is, the supervision and guidance of students’ dissertations on historical matters."
69. "For Bhuyan, the most durable relationship with Assamese historical scholarship was formed when he was elected Secretary of the KAS. Bhuyan frequently attended the KAS meetings. It was here that Bhuyan redirected his attention to this highly debated subject in contemporary Assam. In 1922 he was entrusted with the task of secretary of KAS, a position he served again during 1926–27."
70. "The break came in 1928 with the establishment of the Department of Historical and Antiquarian Studies (DHAS). Bhuyan was appointed an honorary AssistantDirector of the DHAS."
71. "The DHAS, mostly under the stewardship of S.K. Bhuyan, began to collect buranjis systematically"
72. "From its inception, the DHAS was engaged in the collection of manuscripts and making transcripts of historical material. Manuscripts of the buranjis were collected either by correspondence or through tours by workers of the department. Manuscripts were also procured locally on loan. The pre-editing phase of such buranjis was marked by the hazardous task of collection and transcription by office assistants..."
73. "Till 1978, DHAS collected 2,000 manuscripts and 300 transcripts."
74. "Anyone interested in reading a buranji would try and get hold of a copy of a printed buranji that mostly belongs to the post-Bhuyan period. For the reader, there is hardly any difference between the pre-print and the post-print text. The buranjis began appearing in the print domain since the middle of the nineteenth century, when the American Baptist Missionaries published them in their journal Orunodoi."
75. "From 1930 to 1936 Bhuyan compiled, collated, and edited seven buranjis: namely, Assam Buranji by Harakanta Sharma Barua (1930), Kamrupar Buranji (1930), Tungkhungia Buranji (1932), Deodhai Assam Buranji (1932), Assamar Padya Buranji (1932), Padshah Buranji (1935), and Kachari Buranji (1936). The Jayantia Buranji, Tripura Buranji, and Assam Buranji from Sukumar Mahanta's family, and the Satsari Assam Buranji were edited in 1937, 1945, and 1960."
76. "Bhuyan, like his contemporary Assamese scholars began to regard the buranji as an important element of Assamese past. He soon took up the task of studying and editing these buranjis for the benefit of those 'who would love to know about Assam’s antiquity'."
77. "To sum it, I would like to emphasize that the editorial quality of Professor Bhuyan’s work was superior and his publications were products of thorough, incisive research. His attempt was to produce direct and simple expositions of the original manuscripts and here he did a fine job."
78. "Quite often Bhuyan’s edition of buranji is finer version of several contemporary buranjis from which a single narrative was given a shape. Bhuyan himself disclosed how he carried out various editorial tasks in bringing out an edited version of a buranji."
79. "As a research scholar in University of Wisconsin-Madison, I translated to English a few of the edited Assamese buranjis, namely the Satasari Assam Buranji and Deodhai Assam Buranji, I found that Professor Bhuyan’s method of compilation was simple and well set up. He followed the same methodology in organizing all the edited buranjis. The text is presented in the model of western historical books that is in a linear chronological pattern. Especially, in the case of the Satsari buranji the edited publication is a narrative."
80. "The chronological arrangement of the buranjis in Professor Bhuyan’s editions does not mean that the editor attempted to date the text. The buranjis were simply arranged in the chronology of their narration of events and incidents. This method was followed systematically throughout in all publications. In comparing the original manuscripts with the published editions, I have found that Professor Bhuyan’s published editions were generally re-productions of the original manuscripts with nearly no changes in the original orthography and syntax. His editions are, therefore, very useful and dependable for research."
81. "The published editions of these buranjis have various paginations. The preface, editors’ not and table of content consist of one section and the text of the buranji generally constitutes a separate section. Each chapter has a separate heading and within the chapter sub-titles marks the change of subject or event. Further, each paragraph is numbered. This method is followed throughout in all the buranjis. The continuous numbering of paragraphs enable quick and easy search of reference points on any given subject matter. However, a researcher has to recheck the original manuscript before making citations and understandably in reading the original manuscript one finds folio numbers and not paragraph numbers like in the published version."
82. "Bhuyan’s buranjis could be arranged into three distinct types: buranjis which essentialised the Ahom polity; those which focused on the Ahom–Mughal diplomatic arrangement; and those which gave an outline of Ahom and neighbouring tribal kingdoms’ political relationships."
83. "A contemporary reader interested in reading the buranjis could easily fall back on one of Bhuyan’s edited volumes. Very few would actually have access to the original buranjis, as only few came to be printed in their original forms. In post-independence Assam, due to their easy availability, Bhuyan’s buranjis became the standard buranjis, and served as equivalents to the manuscript buranjis."
84. "His attention to the internal criticism of sources was superficial. The extent to which Bhuyan relied on contemporary methods of textual criticism in his reading of buranjis is unknown."
85. "How one could overcome these inconsistencies? Bhuyan did not provide anysignificant answer, but he often reproduced different texts or provided his own judgement. As a scholar uncomfortable with textual criticism, Bhuyan drew inferences from other buranjis to give a complete picture to a buranji. He was more interested in the internal flow of the central narrative in buranjis.111 A lacuna in the central narrative was overcome by interpolation from other contemporary buranjis."
86. "In a work of this nature, generally, different chapters are allotted to scholars who have specialised in specific fields. The dearth of such scholars with necessary linguistic equipment made it incumbent on the editor to entrust the writing of majority of the chapters to Professor J.N. Sarkar, the doyen of Medieval Indian history, who has several outstanding works to his credit. Well-versed in Persian, Sanskrit, Assamese, Hindi, Urdu apart from Bengali he has made extensive and intensive studies on the history of Assam."
87. "It gives not only additional details as to Mir Jumla's invasion but throws light on the quick changes in the fortunes of the two sides in the post-Mir Jumla period, about which the Persian annals are silent."
88. The Purani Asam Buranji, edited by H C Goswami and published by KAS in 1922, too provided information not found elsewhere; it uniquely provides details on the economic aspects of Mughal imperialism.
89. "The three Buranjis – the Ahom Buranji from Khunlung and Khunlai, the Ahom Buranji and the Purani Asam Buranji are equally important. Their ac. counts of the prolonged Ahom-Mughal conflicts are exhaustive and minute. The authorship and the dates of composition of these Buranjis are not mentioned, but from internal evidence (e.g. style and textual references) scholars ascribe these to late seventeenth to early nineteenth century. Their value and authenticity are proved by the touchstone of mutual corroboration as well as of occasional agreement with the Persian chronicles."
90. "(T)he Asam Buranji from Khunlung to Gadadhar Simha (1681-96) is the most important (among newly discovered BUranjis). It follows the Purani Asam Buranji in style but its treatment is more elaborate and detailed at some places, especially as regards the period of Mir Jumla and after."
91. "Asam Buranji, the Ms. of which was obtained from the family of Sukumar Mahanta of North Guwahati, is an important chronicle of Assam from earliest Ahom Kings to Gadadhar Simha (1681–96). Besides accounts of the Muslim invasions of Turbak, Allahyyar Khan, Allauddin Hussain Shah, Mir Jumla and Ram Singh, the chronicle throws light on introduction of social and religious changes and administrative measures of the period."
92. "The first ever buranji to acquire a modern print form was Kashi Nath Tamuli Phukan’s Assom Buranji, published by the American Baptist Missionaries in 1848."
93. "The earlier Assam Buranji of Kashinath Tamuli was penned under the instruction and supervision of the Ahom king, Swargadeo Purandar Singh and his official Radhanath Barbarua."
94. "The enlarged version of this chronicle was written by Sadaramin Harkanta Barua (1818–1900) who was a witness to the last phase of Ahom rule and consolidation of the British administration in Assam."
95. "This was later edited for the benefit of a wider audience by S.K. Bhuyan without making much changes in the original form and published by the Department of History and Antiquarian Studies of Assam in 1930."
96. "Many years ago I was told by Raisahib Golapchandra Barua that he came upon the original Ahom puthi of which the Arunoday text was a translation, and that the ready-made translations thus obtained greatly helped him in initiating his study of the Ahom language of which he has now become the avowed master. It is believed that the translation was made by Jajnaram Deodhai Barua, a great Ahom scholar of the early days of British connection."
97. S K Bhuyan reports that this translation was believed to have been done by an Ahom scholar named Jajnaram Deodhai Barua who flourished soon after 1826.^[96]
98. "The second manuscript of Deodhai Asam Buranji recovered from Srijut Anadiram Gagoi is a much older one. The language of the book is comparatively ancient, and the details are a little more elaborate than in the American Baptist Mission manuscript,"
99. This manuscript was recovered from the family of Sukumar Mahanta)
100. Also called Tai-Ahom Buranji from Khunlung and Khunlai, the English translation of which by Golap Chandra Barua is unpublished