Descending from demons, ascending to kshatriyas: Genealogical claims and political process in pre-modern Northeast India, The Chutiyas and the Dimasas

• Published in: The Indian economic and social history review 2020-01, Vol.57 (1), p.49-75
• Main Author: Shin, Jae-Eun
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: 16th century; Antiquity; Brahmins; Descent; Genealogy; Legitimation; Lineage; Migrants; State formation; Traditions
• ISSN: 0019-4646; 0973-0893
• DOI: 10.1177/0019464619894134

One of the most interesting features of political tradition of pre-modern Northeast India was the presence of local powers tracing their descent from demonic beings. Historical evidence suggests that the demonic royal genealogy was proclaimed at a juncture of transition from pre-state to state society, though the time of transition varied according to the area where it occurred. The nuclear area of the early state of the lower Brahmaputra valley witnessed it in the seventh century, and the spread of state formation from the lower valley to other remote areas of the northeast after the thirteenth century facilitated the dissemination of this lineage model through the agency of brahmins. Asymmetry between the cultural authority of migrant brahmins and peripheral rulers was crucial in this process. Focusing on the Chutiyas and the Dimasas, the local powers established in the fourteenth-century Sadiya area and in the sixteenth-century Cachar hills respectively, the present study will discuss how the descendants of demons were finally approved as kshatriyas; what strategies were employed in this unusual form of legitimation, and how deviation from the traditional demonic lineage occurred. It will help us understand the specificity of political traditions in the peripheral regions of South Asia which cannot be subsumed under the overarching theoretical framework of legitimation.