1840.] Memoir of Sylhet, Kachar^ §• adjacent Districts, 831 



origin of the people through that medium. Greater probability of 

 success offers through a careful examination of their religion and 

 customs, on which points my inquiries will, I think, be found not to be 

 without use. Although Brahmanism professes to receive no converts, 

 yet great efforts have been made to bring within the pale of Hinduism 

 both the Kacharis, the Munipories, and most of the tribes to the 

 eastward. It is matter of history that Brahmanism had no root in 

 Assam earlier than the middle of the 1 6th century, though it has 

 since attained to such power as to shake the throne of that country. 

 In Munipore its progress has been still more recent, but in Kachar 

 Proper, or Hirumbha, the process of conversion has been going on 

 before our eyes, and actually commenced within the last fifty years. 

 The father and uncle of the two last Rajas professed the old religion, and 

 did not conform to Brahmanism; but Krishna and Gobindchundra, 

 about the year 1790 a. d., were both placed, with certain ceremonies, 

 in the body of a large copper image of a cow, and thence produced 

 by Bengali Brahmins as reclaimed Hindus to an admiring people. 

 Place was assigned them as Chhettry of the Suraj Bungsi tribe, and 

 numbers of their followers, after their example, were admitted to caste, 

 and are called Hindus ; but still greater numbers were infinitely 

 disgusted at the whole procedure, and there can be little doubt that the 

 divisions to which it gave rise, and the injudicious persecutions by 

 which it was followed, were at the root of all the misfortunes by which 

 the country was soon visited. 



The ancient religion of Kachar is not clearly referable to any of the 

 forms existing in Eastern Asia, and certainly not to any of the Hindu 

 systems, as will appear by the following account. The Kacharis ac- 

 knowledge a Supreme Being, or first principle, from which the world 

 and all that it contains is derived. They worship the manifest powers 

 of nature, or rather spirits having authority over them, and the in- 

 fluences of the seasons. 



No superstitious regard is paid to animal life, and even the cow was 

 not anciently held sacred. 



There is no class set apart for the priesthood, neith^ do any take 

 upon themselves exclusively sacerdotal functions ; but these are per- 

 formed by the elders in families, and by the ministers of state, and 

 high public functionaries, on great public occasions. There was how- 



5 N 



