The beginning of Indo-Aryan migration to Assam or more appropriately Kamarupa is estimated to the fifth century BCE when a trickle of Indo-Aryans entered a region that was already populated by Austro-Asiatic speakers,Dravidian and Tibeto-Burman speakers. It is estimated that the Aryan culture became predominant by the 3rd century and reached eastern Assam by the 5th century, as evidenced by the Nagajari-Khanikargaon rock inscription in the Golaghat region. Aryan presence and influence became significant by the 7th century,. The copper plate inscriptions of Kamarupa gives weight to Aryan culture of ancient Assam.
Contents
The Aryan wave extended to Kamarupa directly from Mithila and Magadha long before Lower Bengal became either habitable or fit for Aryan occupation. Kamarupa was therefore Aryanized long before central and lower Bengal.
The Magadha empire was founded by Bimbisara in the 4th century BCE. About this time, or after, the whole of northern Bengal, to the south of tho Jalpaiguri district and west of the Trisrota, was absorbed in the Maurya empire together with the Tamralipti region in the south west. The Mauryan empire of Ashoka undoubtedly included northern Bengal between the Teesta (Karatoya) and the Kosi, for within this area stupas erected by Ashoka were found by Yuan Chwang in the 7th century CE. This area continued to be included in the Magadha empire at least till the 6th century CE. During the rule of the Imperial Gupta's this stretch was known as Pundravardhana. To the east and north of Pundravardhana, Kamarupa continued as an independent kingdom ruled over by an indigenous line of kings who traced descent from mythological rulers Naraka, Bhagadatta and Vajradatta who were heroes mentioned in the epics.
From epigraphic records, so far brought to light, it is possible to trace an almost unbroken genealogy of these kings from about the middle of the 4th century CE down to the 12th century or a period of nearly nine hundred years. Very few of the old Hindu kingdoms in India can present such unique genealogical records covering such a long period. No less than twelve copperplate inscriptions, inscribed seals and rock-inscriptions recorded by various kings of Kamarupa during this period have been discovered and deciphered. Epigraphic records left by the famous Gupta emperor Samudra Gupta, Yasodharman, king of Malwa, who was a famous conqueror, Adityasena, who belonged to the line of Later Guptas of Magadha, Jayadeva, a well-known king of Nepal and some of the Pala kings and Sena kinks of Bengal provide useful material for the history of Kamarupa during this period.
The Raghuvaugsa of Kalidasa, the very valuable accounts of the Chinese writers, the Harsha-Charita of Banabhatta, the Raja-tarangini of Kahlan and the translations from Tibetan records, made available, also throw valuable light. The local epigraphic records constitute, however the most important foundation on which a reliable frame-work of history can be based.
Migration
The Indo-Aryan speaking people came into a region that was already inhabited by Austroasiatic, Dravidian and Tibeto-Burman-speaking peoples, later in turn immigrated from China.
It is held that a majority of the Indo-Aryans spoke Old Kamarupi dialect or Old Assamese also known as Kamarupi Prakrit, the precursor of Assamese language and the Kamatapuri lects; and that the learned few knew Sanskrit. The Indo-Aryan language was accepted as a second language by some of the aboriginal peoples and it became a link language; and over time, it became the first language for many. In return, the Indo-Aryan languages in the region acquired linguistic features of the native speakers.
Reconstruction
The 8th- to 6th-century BCE text, Shatapatha Brahmana, describes the Sanskritization of East India up to the Karatoya river. Archaeologically, the Northern Black Polished Ware reached the Karatoya firmly by the 2nd century BCE. The Karatoya river formed the western boundary of the historic Kamarupa kingdom, and sanskritization of Assam cannot thus be pushed beyond the 6th century BCE. It is also significant that neither early Buddhist sources, nor Ashokan epigraphs (3rd century BCE with the capital in East India) mention the Assam region. A reference to Lauhitya in Kautilya's Arthashastra (3rd century BCE) is sometimes identified with the Brahmaputra region.
The first date-able epigraphic notice of the region is found in the 4th century Allahabad pillar of Samudragupta, where Kamarupa and Davaka are mentioned as frontier provinces of the Gupta Empire. Indo-Aryan account of the region between 500 BCE and 4th century CE comes from revised Mahabharata and Puranas (from the 2nd century BCE to the 2nd century CE), and the c. 10th-century Kalika Purana. Though the various accounts in these Hindu texts conflict each other, it is nevertheless held that large bands of Indo-Aryan people moved from Magadha to the forested regions of the Brahmaputra valleys in search of elephants, timber and virgin land; and the leaders of these bands are remembered in later myths as Parashurama, Bashishtha and Naraka. That these bands of Indo-Aryan established their own rule in the region can be inferred from the account in Kalika Purana where it is said that Naraka displaced an indigenous Danava dynasty.
In the historic period, the Kamarupa kings encouraged immigration from North India, and settled Brahmins as "islands of private domains in a sea of communally held tribal lands of shifting cultivation". One such settlement was Habung, where Ratnapal of the Pala dynasty of Kamarupa settled Brahmins in c. the 10th century, then known as Ha-Vrnga Vishaya.
Sanskritization and tribal societies
Though traditional accounts brand the kings of Assam as Indo-Aryan, modern scholarship is not clear. Sanskritization, was a process that occurred simultaneously with "deshification" (or localization, or tribalization) in Assam.