704 Account of the Origin, etc. of the [July, 



of the rest of these tribes hereafter. Many of them have abandoned 

 wholly their own tongues, and a deal of their own manners. But our 

 present business is with the Kocch, Bodo and Dhimal, and first with the 

 first. 



Kocch Location. — In the northern part of Bengal, towards Dalimkot, 

 appears to have been long located the most numerous and powerful 

 people of Tamulian extraction on this side the Ganges, and the only one 

 which, after the complete ascendency of the Arians had been established, 

 was able to retain or recover political power or possession of the open 

 plains. What may have been the condition of the Kocch in the palmy 

 days of Hinduism cannot now be ascertained : but it is certain that after 

 the Moslem had taken the place of the Hindu suzerainty, this people be- 

 came so important that Abul Fazl could state Bengal as being " bounded 

 on the north by the kingdom of Kocch which, he adds, includes Kam- 

 rup." Hajd founded this kingdom towards the close of the fifteenth cen- 

 tury, or beginning of the sixteenth, and it was retained by his sovereign 

 successors for nearly 200 years.* In 1 773 the Company's gigantic power 

 absorbed the Kocch Raj, which once included the western half of Assam 

 on one side and the eastern half of Morung on the other, with all the 

 intervening country, reaching east and west from the Dhansri river to 

 the Konki, whilst north and south it stretched from Dalimkot to Ghora- 

 ghat. In other words the Kocch Raj extended from 88° to 93^ east 

 longitude, and from 25 to 27 north latitude, Kocch Bihar being its me- 

 tropolis, and its limits being coequal with those of the famous yet ob- 

 scure Kamrup of the Tantras. Hajo's representative still exercises jura 

 regalia in that portion of the ancient possessions of the family which is 

 called Nij Bihar, and he and the Jilpaigori and Panga Rajas, together 

 with the Bijni and Darang Rajas, and several of the Lords Marchers 

 of the north frontier of Kamrup (Baruas of the Dwars) — all of the same 

 lineage — still hold as Zamindar Rajas most of the lands between Sikim, 

 Bhutan and Kamrup, as at present constituted, and a southern line near- 

 ly coincident with the 26° of north latitude. Sukla Dev of the Kocch 

 dynasty divided the kingdom, and there seems to have been in later 

 times a triple Sultanat fixed at Bihar, Rangamati and Gauhati. The 



whom I restore their proper name. These are abundant proofs of common origin 

 of Garos also. 



* Buch. Rangpur, Vol. III. p. 419, &c. &c. 



