Sukaphaa - King of Ahom Kingdom

King of Ahom Kingdom

Having reached Namrup, Sukaphaa bridged the Sessa river, and went upstream along the Burhi Dihing river looking to establish a colony for wet rice cultivation. He did not find the region conducive to cultivation and returned downstream to Tipam. In 1236, he left Tipam for Abhaypur. A flood made him move again in 1240 down the Brahmaputra to Habung (present-day Dhakuakhana). Another flood and he moved again in 1244, down the Brahmaputra to the Dikhowmukh, and then up the Dikhow river to Ligirigaon. Leaving a detachment at Ligirigaon, he moved again in 1246 to Simaluguri. In 1253, he abandoned Simaluguri for Charaideo, his final capital, where he finally died in 1268.

Even though Sukaphaa treated the people of the Patkai hills very severely on his way to the Brahmaputra valley, his approach to the population in Assam was conciliatory and non-confrontational. He married the daughters of Badaucha, the Matak Chief and Thakumatha, the Barahi chief and established cordial relations with them. As he began establishing his domain, he avoided regions that were heavily populated. He encouraged his soldiers as well as members of the Ahom elite to marry locally. A process of Ahomization (whereby locals who adopted Ahom methods of wet rice cultivation and statecraft were accepted into the Ahom fold) bolstered the process of integration. The Barahi and the Moran, speakers of Tibeto-Burman languages, called Sukaphaa's people "Ha-Cham", that later on developed into "Assam" (see Etymology of Assam), the name of the kingdom; and "Ahom", the name of the people.