1849*] K<jcch, Bodo and Bhimdl People. 705 



Rajahs of Gauhati and their kinsmen of Darang extended the Kocch 

 dominion eastward to and beyond the Majuli, or great Island of the 

 Brahmaputra. Hajo, the founder, having no sons, gave his daughter 

 and heiress to a Bodo or Mecch chief in marriage ; and to the wise 

 policy indicated by this act (the policy of uniting the aborigines and 

 directing their united force against intruders) was the founder of the 

 Kocch dynasty, indebted for his success against the Moslems, the Bhu- 

 tanese and the Assamese.* Nevertheless the successors of Hajo speedi- 

 ly abandoned that policy, casting off the Mecch (Bodo) with scorn, and 

 renouncing the very name of their own country and tribe, with their 

 language, creed and customs, in favour of those of the Arians who, how- 

 ever resolutely they may eschew the aborigines, whilst continuing ob- 

 scure and contumacious, never fail to hold out the hand of fellowship to 

 them, when they become powerful at once and docile. In a word, 

 Visva Sinh, the conqueror's grandson, with all the people of condition, 

 apostatised to Hinduism : the country was renamed Bihar — the people, 

 Rajbansi ; so that none but the low and mean of this race could longer 

 tolerate the very name of Kocch, and most of these, being refused a 

 decent status under the Hindu regime, yet infected, like their betters, 

 with the disposition to change, very wisely adopted Islam in preference 

 to helot Hinduism. Thus the mass of the Kocch people became Maho- 

 medans, and the higher grades, Hindus ; both style themselves Raj- 

 bansi : a remnant only still endure the name of Kocch ; and of these 

 but a portion adheres to the. language, creed and customs of their fore- 

 fathers—as it were, merely to perpetuate a testimony against the apos- 

 tacy of the rest ! The above details are interesting for the light they 

 throw upon the character and genius of Hinduism, which is certainly 

 an exclusive system, but not inflexibly so ; and whilst it readily admits 

 the powerful to the eminent status of Rajput vel Kshatriya, it is prone 

 to tender to the humble and obscure no station above helotism — a narrow- 

 ness of polity that enabled Buddhism not only to establish itself in the 



* The Yogini Tantra denounces these three, under the appellations of Plov,* 

 Yavan and Saumar, as the foreign scourges of the land. Buch. III. 413. The 

 Assamese (Saumar) alluded to are the Ahoms, who held upper Assam when the 

 Kocch held lower and middle, but with ever- varying limits. 



* Pluh or Pruh is the Lepcha name of the Bhutanese, and may be the etymon of the Plava of 

 the Tantras. The people of Bhutan call themselves Lhopa. 



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