1847.] Perijplus of the Erythrean Sea y fyc. 29 



distant period from the time they entered the plains of Hindoostan, that 

 the two outcast or exiled classes of Kshatriyas called Chinas and Kiratas 

 by Menu, invaded Assam and the Morung and were thence designated 

 by the names of the uncivilized tribes whom they vanquished. The 

 country of Chin, described as adjacent to Kamroop on the east, can be no 

 other than the eastern part of the valley of Assam. This remote and 

 secluded region was almost a terra incognita to the natives of India prior 

 to the 17th century. Bukhtyar Khulijy invaded Assam in the 13th, 

 and Sultan Hossein Addeen in the loth centuries, but little information 

 was obtained regarding it until A. D. 1660, when Aurengzebe sent an 

 expedition to it under Meer Jumla.* Tavernier mentions, that until 

 this time, little or nothing was known of Assam. He describes it as one 

 of the richest and most productive countries in Asia.f His account of it 

 and that contained in the Alumgirnamah of Mahomed CazimJ were the 

 only sources of information whence geographers drew their descriptions 

 of this country before the commencement of the present century. The 

 natives of Bengal had few opportunities of becoming acquainted with 

 Assam, prior to the conquest of it by the English Government. Strangers 

 were denied admission into it ; trade was carried on at the mountain 

 passes leading into it, or at fixed marts on the banks of the Brahma- 

 putra, where this river enters Bengal : and the only persons, therefore, 

 who could give any information respecting Upper Assam were the few 

 pilgrims who penetrated to the Brahmakund. The word Thina, the 

 name of the country of the Thinse or Sinse, is supposed to be a corrup- 

 tion of Chin or Cheen, but it seems more probable that it is derived 

 from T'hai — the name of an extensive Indo-Chinese race, which compre- 

 hends the Siamese, the Laos or Shyans, the Khamtis, and Ahom 

 nations, that are spread over a tract of country, stretching from Upper 

 Assam and the sources of the Irawaddee on the north, to the gulf of 

 Siam on the south. The Thinse and Sinse mentioned by Arrian and 

 Ptolemy are one and the same nation, and apparently the T'hai or Shyans 

 inhabiting the extensive region above mentioned. The Ahoms of Assam 

 are descended from the Laos or Shyans. The date of their settlement 

 in that country is not known but there is reason to infer that it was an- 

 terior to the introduction of Buddhism into Siam. Capt. Low remarks 

 that " the Chang priests of Assam speak a dialect of the Siamese." He 

 * Stewart's History of Bengal, f Tavernier 's Travels. % Asiat. Res. Vol. II. 



