1893.] 
297 
E. A. Gait — The Koch Kings of Kamarupa. 
Another incident not mentioned in the Variis- 
■ N sion'to the a Emperor? 1S " is that related in the following extract 
from the Akbarnamah : * — 
“ To the events of this time (1578 A. D.) belongs the arrival of the 
“ Peshkash from Bengal and Koch Bihar. Baja Bal Gosaih (Kara 
“Narayana) who is Zamindar of Koch, submitted again, and sent valu- 
“ able presents from Bengal, with 54 elephants, ” 
On the other hand, the Musalman historians of the period make 
no mention of the assistance said to have been rendered by Nava Nara- 
yana in the subjugation of Daiid Shall. 
The Akbarnamah tells us that when hostilities broke out between 
Lakshmi Narayana aud the ruler of the eastern Koch kingdom, the for- 
mer made his submission to the Emperor and met Baja Man Singh at 
Auandapur. It is added that he gave his daughter in marriage to the 
latter, and not to the Emperor as stated in the Vamsdvali. 
In the Tuzuk i Jalidngm it is stated that, in 1618 A. D., Lakshmi 
Narayana paid his respects personally at court in Gujrat and presented 
a nazzar of 500 mohars. 
The invasion of Parikshit’s kingdom however, is attributed, not to 
Invasion of Parikshit’s the iniliation of Lakshmi Narayana, but to a 
Kingdom. complaint made by Baghunatha, the Zamindar 
of Sosang, whose family Parikshit had imprisoned. 
The Padishdhndmah contains a full account of the invasion which 
followed. The following abridgment is taken from the translation 
given by Blochmann in the J. A. S. B. for 1872 (pages 53-62). 
Mukarram Khan invaded Koch llajo with 6,000 horse, 12,000 foot and 
500 ships, and took Parikshit’s fort at Dhubri, at which place he halted 
named Suckel Conso (S'ukl Koch or S'ukladhvaja), because the part of the kingdom 
which ho visited was west of the S’ankosh (cf. Blochmann, J. A. S. B., page 240), and 
this part has never been claimed as having at any time belonged to S'ukladhvaja 
or his descendants. It is clear, therefore, that there must be some mistake, and as 
S'ukladhvaja was a far more prominent man than his elder brother, the real king, 
it is not unlikely that Ralph Fitch thought that he was the ruler de jure as well 
de facto. Or it may be, that Ralph Fitch’s visit took place during the year for 
which, according to Gunabliiram, Nara Niirayana left his kingdom in charge of 
Silarili and wandered about in disguise, in order to avoid the disaster which it was 
supposed would ensue from the influence of the planet Saturn, under which the 
astrologers asserted that he had had the misfortune to come. The story of his 
temporary abdication is not improbable, as the Ganaks have always exercised almost 
unlimited power over credulous converts to Hinduism, and we have an exact parallel 
in Ahom history in the case of the king S'iva Simha, who abdicated in 1720 A. D. 
in favour of his wife Phiilesvari, iu cousoquenco of an advorso prediction by the 
astrologers attached to his court. 
* Lucknow edition, III, page 207. 
