The Khen dynasty (also Khyen dynasty) of

Assam Assam (; ) is a state in northeastern India, south of the eastern Himalayas along the Brahmaputra and Barak River valleys. Assam covers an area of . The state is bordered by Bhutan and Arunachal Pradesh to the north; Nagaland and Manipur to ...

was a late medieval dynasty of erstwhile

Kamata kingdom The Kamata Kingdom (pron: ˈkʌmətɑ) emerged in western Kamarupa probably when Sandhya, a ruler of Kamarupanagara, moved his capital west to Kamatapur sometime after 1257 CE. Since it originated in the old seat of the Kamarupa kingdom, a ...

. After the fall of the Pala dynasty of Kamrupa, the western region was reorganized into

, when Sandhya moved his capital from Kamarupanagara to Kamatapur in about 1257, due to the frequent clashes with the Kacharis from the east. Sandhya styled himself ''Kamateswara'' and the kingdom came to be known as "Kamata". The Khen dynasty at a later period took control of the kingdom.

Origin

According to the ''Gosani Mangala'' (1823), the Khen rulers had a humble origin, implying that they were probably local chieftains that rose to power after the fall of the Palas. Ethnically, the Khen rulers belonged to a Tibeto-Burman ethnolinguistic group. Ethnicity of Khen is not known precisely but may have been associated with Khyen of Indo-Burmese border or Kheng from the mountains. Though there is no contemporary historical evidence, some data from eighteenth-century's Gosanimangal claim that a boy named Kanta Nath became the Khen ruler Niladwaj who hailed from poor family in Taluk Jambari on the bank of Singimari. Other sources claim Kanta Nath to be a migrant from

Tripura Tripura (, Bengali: ) is a state in Northeast India. The third-smallest state in the country, it covers ; and the seventh-least populous state with a population of 36.71 lakh ( 3.67 million). It is bordered by Assam and Mizoram to the east ...

. They worshipped ''Kamatashwari''"(T)heir tutelary deity called Kâmatesvarî or the goddess of Kàmatàpur" (also called ''Chandi'' or ''Bhavani''), thus providing a break from the earlier dynasties that drew their lineage from

Narakasura Naraka, also known as Narakasura (), is an asura king in Hindu mythology. In Assamese tradition, he is regarded as the legendary progenitor of all three dynasties of Pragjyotisha-Kamarupa, and the founding ruler of the legendary Bhauma dy ...

, the son of

Vishnu Vishnu ( ; , ), also known as Narayana and Hari, is one of the Hindu deities, principal deities of Hinduism. He is the supreme being within Vaishnavism, one of the major traditions within contemporary Hinduism. Vishnu is known as "The Prese ...

Fall

The kingdom of Kamatapura finally fell to

Alauddin Husain Shah Ala-ud-din Husain Shah ( bn, আলাউদ্দিন হোসেন শাহ (1494–1519)Majumdar, R.C. (ed.) (2006). ''The Delhi Sultanate'', Mumbai: Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan, pp.215-20 was an independent late medieval Sultan of Bengal, who ...

in 1498. But Hussein Shah could not rule the kingdom— Bhuyan chiefs of the region defeated the invaders in 1505. Soon control of the Kamata kingdom passed into the hands of the

Koch dynasty Koch may refer to: People * Koch (surname), people with this surname * Koch dynasty, a dynasty in Assam and Bengal, north east India * Koch family * Koch people (or Koche), an ethnic group originally from the ancient Koch kingdom in north east ...

."The kingdom again passed on to the rule of the Bhuyans till the rise of the Koches in about 1515 AD."

Origin

Fall

Rulers

See also

Notes

References