Reading the realm: Divination,warfare and political authority in the Ahom kingdom

Introduction

This article investigates the political significance of divination within the Ahom kingdom through an examination of how divinatory practices shaped interactions between religion and the state. The Ahoms, who were a part of the wider Tai community, migrated to the Brahmaputra Valley (present-day Assam) in Northeastern India in the early thirteenth century, bringing their own rituals and divination practices. They carved out a state by subduing local tribes and regional kingdoms, and became the dominant force in the region by the sixteenth century. This period also witnessed shifts in the region’s religious landscape, marked by the rise of Neo-Vaishnavism and the strengthening of brahmanical institutions. Drawing on astrological and mantic frameworks, the article explores how divinatory practices intervened in Ahom political processes, particularly in relation to warfare, royal decisions and priestly authority. In doing so, the study also highlights the intersection of courtly and indigenous traditions, and the tensions that emerged during the gradual ‘Hinduisation’ of the Ahom polity. The work primarily relies on Ahom court chronicles (buranjis) and Vaishnavite hagiographical sources from the Brahmaputra Valley. It also utilises inscriptions, colonial ethnographic sources, travelogues written by European travellers and chronicles written by Mughal administrator-scholars.

Earlier historiographical accounts of the Ahom kingdom have largely dismissed divination as a superstitious vestige of a pre-modern past. S. N. Sarma, for instance, discussed divination alongside ghosts and spirits under the rubric of ‘Superstitions, Beliefs & Practices’. ² Similarly, S. K. Bhuyan, in his biography of Lachit Barphukan, criticised the Ahom general for giving equal importance to astrological injunctions and military measures during his campaigns against the Mughal invasions of the 1660s and 1670s. ³ These views embody a rationalist outlook that regards divination as a regressive and superstitious practice, supposedly abandoned with the advent of modernisation and formal education. They also absolve scholars from the task of analysing the political functions and significations of these practices.

Recent scholarship in other contexts shows how explorations of divinatory and related practices might yield interesting insights. Michael Flower’s study of ancient Greek seers documented their indispensability in political and military life, emphasising the symbiotic relationship between the seer and his general. ⁴ In a different but related context, A. Azfar Moin argued that pre-modern states treated divinatory knowledge with the same seriousness as history and religion, viewing all these domains as integrated efforts to shape political outcomes. Royalty often used both examples from the past and purported knowledge of the future to influence the trajectory of the present. ⁵ Moin also documented the crucial role of divination in the Safavid and Mughal courts. ⁶ S. Gunasekaran contended that certain pre-modern societies could view dreams as divine or demonic messages with predictive power, accessible only to specialised interpreters. ⁷ What each of these studies gestures towards is the possibility that a careful analysis of the religio-mantic and the political domains in pre-modern contexts may yield insights into how these might intersect in interesting ways. This article aims to establish that there is sufficient evidence to warrant a reassessment of the place of mantic practitioners, even in Ahom courtly and political contexts.

The central argument of the article is that divination played a vital role in the politico-cultural climate of the Ahom kingdom. The Ahom court endeavoured to control its diviners and direct their mantic energies to projects relevant to the state, thus implicating divination and its practitioners intimately with Ahom politics. A study of divination also enables us to examine the inherent tensions within the processes of brahmanisation in the Ahom polity. The battlefield and the court, where brahmanical religion was gaining ground, became places where Ahom priests practising osteomancy (bone-divination) mingled with daivajnas (Hindu astrologers). This study explores these religio-cultural dimensions of state formation and the contested spaces of power.

A brief discussion of the different mantic practitioners and methods of forecasting the future in the Brahmaputra Valley, and a quick overview of pre-modern astrology in India, is followed by an attempt to situate dreams and omens within the political milieu of pre-modern Assam. The article also examines the role of divination specialists in warfare, the risks they faced in the court and on the battlefield, and the contestations among different types of mantic practitioners.

Foretelling Future: Mantic Practices and Practitioners

There were two main types of state-sponsored divination specialists in the Ahom kingdom. The first comprised the daivajnas, who practised astrology to forecast the future. The second consisted of Ahom ritual specialists, divided into three groups: deodhai, mohan and bailung. ⁸ According to J. N. Sarkar, these divisions reflected functional distinctions: the deodhais worshipped the gods, the bailungs performed divinations and the mohans arranged the worship. ⁹ However, in the buranjis, the functions are not as clearly separated. For instance, the deodhais regularly conducted osteomantic divination. Therefore, for analytical clarity, this article will collectively refer to Ahom ritual specialists as Ahom priests and daivajnas as astrologers. This division is arbitrary in some ways, since Ahom priests also utilised astrology; however, it helps differentiate between two broadly distinct mantic traditions within the Ahom state. When discussing both groups together, the terms ‘divination specialist’, ‘diviner’ or ‘mantic practitioner’ will be used.

Kings, Dreams and Omens

Having outlined the institutional structures through which divination operated, the article now turns to the broader cosmological assumptions that endowed divination with significance within the Ahom state. In ancient Indian thought, natural phenomena were not attributed to impersonal regularity but to deliberate divine will exercised by the deity governing over a specific domain. Therefore, portents in the kingdom were considered a warning to the king, whose body encompassed the people and territory of the kingdom. These signs could predict potential decline or disorder of the realm, thereby investing them with exceptional political significance. In response, kings engaged in daily rituals and conduct considered auspicious to avert disasters. Celestial omens, Ronald Inden argues, compelled kings to identify the responsible god and perform the necessary rituals to resolve the crisis. ⁷¹ This framework corresponds closely to the classificatory scheme attributed to Sage Garga, who divided omens into three categories based on their place of occurrence. The first category was celestial, encompassing planets, comets, eclipses, stars, the sun and the moon. The second category was atmospheric, encompassing meteors, the red glow on the horizon, the halo around the sun or moon, irregular rainfall and so on. The third category was terrestrial, encompassing earthquakes or unnatural phenomena in water bodies. While ritual intervention could supposedly avert or mitigate the negative effects predicted by atmospheric and terrestrial omens, celestial portents were irrevocable. ⁷²

This cosmological framework is reflected in Ahom astrological and ritual texts. The goal of Ahom astrological texts was to warn rulers about impending dangers, allowing them to take measures to prevent them, as only the ruling class had the resources to perform the necessary rituals. ⁷³ Divination that merely predicted an imminent crisis without giving the requisite solution was ultimately useless. Terwiel and Wichasin, in their study of three early eighteenth-century Ahom ritual texts, observe that these works assume that the movements of celestial bodies are governed by supreme deities and that abnormal phenomena in the sky should be interpreted as divine warnings. The primary function of these texts is to identify specific omens and to prescribe the ritual actions required to avert the foretold dangers, a process in which the priests present themselves as the exclusive mediators between the gods and the affairs of the state. ⁷⁴ Given the conceptual linkage between the king’s body and the fate of the realm, ritual purification of the sovereign was understood to remove the ills affecting the state. Ahom ritual texts recommend that when the moon wanes, the king should bathe, ‘soaking in special herbal plants, wiping his body, washing the head, so that the trouble of the country will flee away and it will be good’. ⁷⁵ Divinatory interpretation extended beyond celestial phenomena and royal ritual to encompass animals closely associated with kingship, such as elephants. The Hastividyārṇava, an Ahom manual on elephant training, provides a detailed catalogue of omens and auspicious signs discernible from elephants’ lives, gestures and bodily movements, which were interpreted as indicators of the king’s and the kingdom’s continued prosperity. ⁷⁶

Certain portents were considered sufficiently self-evident that cryptomancy (divination through omens) did not require a divination specialist. An episode from 1563, during the Ahom–Koch conflict, illustrates this dynamic. While the Ahom king was bathing, a kite seized the royal ornaments kept beside him, flew towards the Koch forces and dropped them before their army. This act was immediately interpreted as a sign of Koch victory, as their commander’s name was Chilarai (the Kite Prince). The Ahom king, therefore, retreated. ⁷⁷

In line with Sage Garga’s categorisation, certain celestial portents and omens were so ubiquitous that they were visible to everyone but could not be averted. Before the death of Pratap Singha (r. 1603–41), the chronicles record a series of extraordinary omens throughout the kingdom: rotten grains grew in the fields, some children were born in the shape of pigs and others with three eyes. When the king fell sick, he sent messengers to the temple (Devalaya) at Dewargaon to enquire about the length of his remaining life. He received a reply in a dream that he would live for as many days as there were leaves on the nahar flower in the temple. Upon being informed that 45 leaves remained, Pratap Singha prepared for death by granting public audiences and distributing gifts to brahmanas, boys, women and the elderly. He died shortly thereafter. ⁷⁸ A similar pattern recurs in 1643 during the reign of his successor Surampha (r. 1641–44). Multiple portents occurred throughout the realm: a mountain fort under construction collapsed in a landslide, famine followed when boiled unhusked rice sprouted, yellow threads fell from the sky, flocks of birds encircled the realm as they flew eastward, bamboo flowered and so on. Surampha attempted to avert these calamities by offering sacrifices to the god Sheng (an Ahom god) at Charaideo, worshipping the gods at Dihing and performing rites for all the gods within the royal palace. Despite these efforts, the king fell ill and died. ⁷⁹

In modern thought, dreams are understood as products of the individual mind, shaped by the dreamer’s past experiences. In contrast, in the pre-modern world, dreams were treated as the will of the gods or as originating in an external world separate from the dreamer, either divine or demonic in character. They were believed to contain symbolic messages, which could only be interpreted by dream specialists, such as priests, saints or witches, and were beyond the understanding of the general populace. ⁸⁰ Ahom sources, however, suggest a slightly different pattern. Royal dreams are frequently interpreted by the king himself, without recourse to any dream specialist. In these accounts, gods appeared directly in royal dreams to convey their support or demands. During the Mughal–Ahom conflict of 1614, when Mughal forces pressed the Ahom army, the Ahom king Pratap Singha was assured of victory in a dream by the god Nakuri-Nakham. Upon waking, he immediately began worshipping the god. The Mughal army subsequently halted near Guwahati, an outcome attributed in the buranji to the god’s power. ⁸¹ Deities also appeared in royal dreams to articulate their needs. In 1627, Pratap was informed in a dream by Mahadev that the god had arrived in his kingdom in Dewargaon and desired the son of a specific ganaka to serve as a priest at his temple. In response, the king built a temple dedicated to Siva at Dewargaon, granting it 500 men, horses, elephants and the requested priest. ⁸² In these narratives, royal dreams link divine will to concrete political and institutional action.

Royal autonomy in oneirocriticism (dream-interpretation) did not stop wider recourse to specialists. Across the Brahmaputra Valley, nobles and commoners alike consulted religious specialists to decode dreams. ⁸³ Such consultations could even be done on the battlefield by mantic practitioners. During the Ahom–Mughal conflict of the late 1660s, Lachit Barphukan, the commander of the Ahom forces, dreamt about a ‘tall and fair-complexioned lady with the upper lip touching the sky and the lower touching the underworld; her tongue pointed towards the Moguls while the Assamese legions with the commanders were stationed behind her’. He solicited the opinions of both ganakas and deodhais in his camp, who interpreted the dream as portending the destruction of the Mughal army and an Ahom victory, thereby strengthening morale among the troops. ⁸⁴ Oneirocriticism was also practised within religious settings. A source recounts that a neo-Vaishnavite disciple who had lost his money and failed to recover it after several days of searching approached Madhavadeva, a leading Vaishnavite figure, for assistance. Madhavadeva interpreted the disciple’s dreams, concluded that a kite had carried off the money and indicated the location where it had dropped it, enabling the disciple to recover the lost money. ⁸⁵

Thus, although mantic practitioners employed techniques such as astrology and osteomancy to foretell future events, they were also aware of the limits of their abilities. Consequently, they remained attentive to omens and dreams, which were understood as direct communications from higher powers and as crucial supplements to formal divinatory calculation. Elite-centred sources such as the buranjis primarily recorded those omens and dreams that affected the functioning of higher levels of governance, especially the person of the king. Interpretation, however, did not guarantee that the foretold event could be averted. Dreams might be interpreted either by divination specialists or, in certain cases, by the dreamer themselves. Whether interpreted autonomously by the sovereign or mediated through priests and mantic specialists, oneirocriticism constituted an important system through which political decisions, military morale, religious patronage and everyday misfortune were rendered intelligible and mitigable within the Ahom socio-religious order.

Divination and Warfare

Dreams and omens helped illuminate the cosmological assumptions of political behaviour in the Ahom kingdom. Warfare was another critical front where we see divination specialists play an important role. The earlier historiography of medieval Assam, as seen in the works of S. K. Bhuyan and S. N. Sarma, dismissed divination as a remnant of a superstitious worldview. From this perspective, Ahom military success occurred not because of, but in spite of the involvement of diviners. ⁸⁶ Such interpretations, however, overlook the intellectual and cultural frameworks within which the Ahom kingdom functioned. Recent scholarship on divination in the pre-modern world has moved beyond the reductive view that astrologers functioned merely as morale boosters for armies. They emphasise the symbiotic relationship between generals and mantic practitioners, arguing that divinatory practices were woven into military and political strategy. ⁸⁷

Ahom sources mention two main methods of divination practised on the battlefield. The first was apyromantic chicken-bone divination by Ahom priests. The second was calculations by Hindu astrologers (ganakas). There is no detailed information on how these mantic specialists practised their craft on the battlefield. Common sense tells us that rituals might be shortened during battle. An episode from 1532 lends some support to this inference. While marching against Turbak’s army, Ahom commander Phrasenmung conducted osteomantic divination atop the elephant he was riding. ⁸⁸ Yet such assumptions are not universally valid. During the Battle of Saraighat in 1671, Achyutananda Doloi refused to hasten his calculations even after the Mughal army launched its attack. The Ahom commander Lachit Barphukan threatened to behead him if he did not immediately signal the counter-attack, but Achyutananda persisted until his calculations were complete. ⁸⁹

In addition to these two methods, a Mughal chronicle, the Baharistan-i-Ghaybi, mentions a third type of wartime divination. One day before the battle,

They [the Ahoms] send some magic object floating down the river towards the enemy’s side. If it floats down towards the enemy’s side, they take it as a good omen. If it travels upstream out of its own accord, they take it as foreboding something against them and consider it as a sign of their defeat and they do not go out to battle. In short, according to that custom, they built one raft of plantain trees which is a well-known fruit of India, and performed puja, i.e., worship of the devils, on it, in the following manner. They sacrificed a black man, a dog, a cat, a pig, an ass, a monkey, a he-goat, and a pigeon, all black. Their heads were collected together and placed on the raft along with many ripe bananas, pān, betel-nut, chuwa (acanthophyllum squarrosum), various kinds of scents, rice paste coloured red, yellow and green, cotton seeds, mustard seeds, mustard oil (raughan-i-talkh), ghee (raughan-i-zard) and sindūr (vermillion), and then the raft was pushed adrift. Though they tried to make it float down the stream, it did not go and every time it returned towards them. ⁹⁰

The above description has a tinge of the exotic, but it should be situated within a shared pre-modern culture in which divination was widely accepted, including within the Mughal court. ⁹¹ The ritual it describes also closely resembles prescriptions found in early eighteenth-century Ahom ritual texts concerned with warding off danger. The texts repeatedly instruct that offerings should be floated down rivers to avert danger when the stars are in inauspicious places. Images of the sun and the moon should be set adrift to protect the kingdom, or rafts should be floated down the river to appease malevolent spirits. ⁹² A text prescribes a more detailed ritual when the fate of the king and the state is in danger. A house should be constructed and prayers offered within it to Lak Ni and Kham Mu’ng (Rahu) to ward off danger. Beneath that house, another small house should be built to house an image of fate and items transferred from the bigger house into the smaller one. Then, various animals, such as cows, buffaloes, pigs, ducks, pigeons, doves, tortoises and so on, are to be sacrificed, and their meat and blood placed in front of the images. A priest drinks the blood of these sacrifices. After more rituals, the priest places the images and houses, along with cows and buffaloes, on four plantain (banana) rafts and lowers them into the water. ⁹³

A comparable pattern appears in the ritual called Sara Utuwa, practised among Ahom deodhais and observed by Indira Barua in 1972–73. After completing the paddy plantation, a raft of banana trees is constructed and carried to the nearest stream near the paddy field. Afterwards, five boatmen climb the raft. A deodhai then sacrifices three chickens and throws their heads into the stream. The rest of the bird is served at a feast. Ahoms believe that, after this ceremony, tiny evil spirits responsible for human, cattle and paddy diseases leave the village on the raft. ⁹⁴ The common thread uniting these rituals is the use of rafts, the performance of rituals on them, the sacrifice of animals and the symbolic dispatch of the raft to ward off misfortune. The Mughal description of divination aligns with these common elements.

Among the most significant responsibilities of divination specialists was the selection of military commanders. Contrary to suggestions in earlier historiography, this process did not exist solely for morale-building. ⁹⁵ Mantic recommendations carried significant weight and could compel Ahom kings to appoint disfavoured individuals to military command, thereby constraining royal authority. During the Ahom–Kachari wars of the 1530s, the deodhais and bailungs employed osteomancy to choose Phrasenmung Bargohain for the military command. Dissatisfied, King Suhungmung (r. 1497–1539) ordered a consultation with the Shastras (scriptures) to choose a new candidate. However, Phrasenmung’s name was reconfirmed. The king, displeased at the answer, spat out the paan (betel leaf) he was chewing. Nevertheless, he appointed Phrasenmung as the commander, who successfully completed his assignment. ⁹⁶ A century later, in 1636–37, an officer called the Neog’s son in the chronicles was ordered by the king to capture the Mughal-held fort of Itakhuli. The Neog’s son chose Laifangjang as the army commander through osteomancy, and the campaign ended in victory. ⁹⁷ In the 1660s, Lachit was appointed the Barphukan and led the Ahom forces against the Mughals after being deemed suitable through osteomancy. ⁹⁸

Diviners contributed to warfare not only by choosing officials but also through ritual empowerment. Astrologers played a vital role in blessing weapons (such as cannons and guns) with mantras, enabling them to hit their targets accurately. ⁹⁹ The Ahom calendar was also utilised to foretell auspicious/inauspicious dates for battle, thereby structuring warfare decisions. For example, the third (Din Sam, January–February), fifth (Din Haa, March–April) and twelfth (Din Sip Song, October–November) months were considered inauspicious for battle. ¹⁰⁰

The Ahom state’s faith in divination did not assume that every pronouncement of the diviner was infallible. As Evans-Pritchard observed in his classic study of the Azande, doubts often arose concerning the competence of individual witch-doctors; consequently, their claims were scrutinised by the community, without diminishing belief in the efficacy of the system. ¹⁰¹ Similarly, divination specialists were tested in the Ahom kingdom, and incorrect vatic statements could lead to adverse consequences for mantic practitioners. Rivalry between two divination specialists could lead to a decline in the influence of the less talented. It was mentioned earlier that the ability to conduct astronomical and astrological calculations was closely linked in India. A buranji recounts that two court ganakas, Digambar and Kumud, offered conflicting forecasts about an upcoming eclipse. Digambar predicted that the eclipse would occur; Kumud declared that it would not. The king, bemused by the predictions, wondered how two ganakas using the same techniques could arrive at two different answers. He announced that the ganaka whose prediction proved false would be imprisoned. When the eclipse did not materialise, the king ordered Digambar’s execution. The tale takes an ambiguous turn from here, for Digambar replied that the eclipse had transpired and could be verified by the court officials. The king dispatched an official, the Kukurachowa, to investigate. After returning, the officer reported that a black goat as big as a cow was devouring everything outside. It chased the officials to impale them, and they barely survived. After listening to this story, the king acknowledged that both the ganakas were right and rewarded them. ¹⁰²

The correct prediction was credited with helping the army win battles, but it also needed to be foretold in a timely manner. Both generals and diviners were under severe psychological stress in battles. During the Battle of Saraighat in 1671, the Ahom commander Lachit Barphukan was severely ill and had to be carried to the battlefield. Nevertheless, he personally led the Ahom troops to victory. When the Mughals launched their attack, the Ahom army did not immediately retaliate, as Achyutananda Doloi, their chief astrologer, had not yet finished his calculations to determine the auspicious time for the attack. Lachit, in anxiety, threatened to behead the astrologer if he did not immediately signal the attack. However, Achyutananda refused, and Lachit backed down. After completing his calculations, Achyutananda gave the signal, and the Ahoms emerged victorious. ¹⁰³

In addition to the psychological strain exerted by the Ahom court and commanders, mantic practitioners faced tangible physical threats on the battlefield. These dangers included death, capture and bribery. An example involving Achyutananda and his fellow astrologer Sarobar demonstrates this vulnerability. While taking passage on an Ahom war-boat across the river, they were attacked by four Mughal boats. For nearly an hour, the Ahoms struggled to evade the pursuing forces. During the skirmish, an Ahom soldier beside Sarobar died after being shot in the forehead, whereupon Sarobar fainted with fright. Achyutananda survived by constructing a makeshift wall of 20 shields from dead Ahom soldiers to hide behind. Later, Achyutananda discovered that 19 of the shields bore bullet holes. ¹⁰⁴ The vulnerability of divination specialists extended beyond combat. Ahom sources record that the Mughal commander Ram Singh, having learnt of Achyutananda’s reputed abilities, attempted to secure his services through bribery. Achyutananda rejected these overtures and informed Lachit. Subsequently, the Mughals attempted to kidnap him, though without success. ¹⁰⁵ These accounts highlight the precarious position of diviners, whose expertise was targeted by enemy forces as a strategic resource.

The dangers faced by divination specialists were matched by the rich rewards they could obtain. Achyutananda Doloi emerged as the foremost astrologer in the Ahom kingdom in the 1660s. He wrote multiple books, including an account of the Ahom–Mughal war in the 1660s, and was known as ‘Kavi Saraswati’ due to his poetic talents. He was feted for his contributions towards the Ahom victory in Saraighat in 1671. He received the title ‘Samudra-Khari’, jewelled bangles, a golden sacred thread, marriage with the daughter of Aladibari Gosain of Kamrup and 120 families of slaves as dowry. Eleven astrologers who served him in the war were promoted to the rank of Bar Doloi, the highest grade of astrologer in the Ahom kingdom. His descendants remained important officials under both the Ahom and colonial state until at least the mid-twentieth century. ¹⁰⁶ During the war, Achyutananda received a monthly salary of one thousand rupees. The Mughals attempted to recruit him with an offer of a monthly salary of 4,000 rupees, even offering a broker ten thousand rupees to secure his services. ¹⁰⁷

The Ahom kingdom not only rewarded successful diviners but also actively recruited them, providing opportunities for social mobility. Ahom priests came from the hereditary clans of deodhai, bailung and mohan, and were trained by their families or clans. As the Ahom state expanded from the sixteenth century and integrated with the wider brahmanical networks, it recruited outsiders to fill administrative roles and interpret divine signs. A notable example is the recruitment of the famous daivajna family, later called Sonamuar Ghar, the ‘House of the Golden-mouthed’. Around 1563, Ahom officials detained a daivajna from Kanauj, Suryyavar Surya-vipra, near the Kaliabor Chowky, while he was on a pilgrimage to Parshuram Kund, in present-day Arunachal Pradesh. During interrogation, he claimed the ability to divine the past, present and future. At that time, the Ahoms were fighting the Koch kingdom and had suffered reverses. Asked about Ahom prospects, the daivajna predicted the dates when the Ahoms would recover their territory. The official informed the Ahom king. When the prediction materialised, the king rewarded the daivajna, giving him the title Sonamua (golden-mouthed) and his family came to be known as Sonamuar Ghar. His son later became a Majumdar-Barua (a private secretary to the king and an adviser on foreign affairs). Their descendants continued to be high officials within the Ahom polity. The buranji recounting this episode was written by a descendant of Surya-vipra. ¹⁰⁸

Major military engagements in the Ahom kingdom were preceded by formal consultation with diviners, whose readings shaped both the timing and location of battle. While discussing military campaigns, Ahom sources frequently mention the names of divination specialists alongside those of army commanders. The buranjis regularly imply, sometimes overtly, that accurate divination was instrumental in securing victory, whereas military defeat resulted from the diviner’s advice being disregarded at critical junctures. An episode from 1532, during the invasion of Turbak (a general from the Bengal Sultanate), illustrates this point. The deodhais predicted that the Ahom army would be victorious if the enemy initiated hostilities on the Ahom side of the river, but would be defeated if they crossed the river to attack. Nevertheless, inflamed by the stray attacks of Turbak’s army, the Ahom forces crossed the river and lost. ¹⁰⁹

For all the reliance placed on the vatic statements of divination specialists, decisions regarding wars and diplomatic relations ultimately rested with the sovereign. The king determined when conflict or negotiation would occur. However, within this framework, the specific timing and location of battles were shaped through a calibrated balance between royal directives, the strategic judgement of individual generals and the outcomes of divinatory consultation. Divination functioned as an institutionalised mechanism for resolving uncertainty, particularly when commanders confronted the risks of acting on imperfect information and the fog of war. This dynamic is observable in a series of episodes drawn from the Ahom–Mughal conflicts of the early seventeenth century.

The western expansion of the Ahom state from eastern Assam and the concurrent Mughal expansion eastward brought the two powers into direct conflict in the seventeenth century. In 1613, the Mughals asserted control over the regions of Kamrup and Koch Behar (in western Assam and North Bengal). Two years later, in 1615, the Mughals launched incursions into the Ahom kingdom. ¹¹⁰ The immediate reason was the decision of the Mughal governor of Bengal to dispatch a punitive force against the Ahoms in retaliation for the death of a Muslim trader in their kingdom (in Kaliabar). ¹¹¹ Senior Ahom generals were forced to retreat into a fort under the Mughal onslaught. Therefore, the Ahom king dispatched new officers with explicit orders threatening torture and gruesome death if the soldiers retreated again. At this juncture, the generals (Buragohain and Bargohain) and the officers asked the deodhais to consult the fowl-legs. The osteomantic calculation indicated that victory could be achieved with a night attack. The Ahom nocturnal attack resulted in the massacre of the Mughal forces. ¹¹² A similar pattern is evident during the renewed conflict between the two powers in the 1630s. After years of simmering tension, open hostilities commenced in 1635. In 1639, the king ordered an Ahom official known as the Neog’s son to attack the Mughal position. Before launching the attack, the official requested deodhais to consult chicken-bones to decide the propitious time for the attack. At the foretold time, the troops marched to Itakhuli and captured the Mughal fort. ¹¹³ A peace treaty was signed later that year. Though it failed to end the conflict, it decreased its tempo. ¹¹⁴

By the beginning of the seventeenth century, the Ahom royal authorities exerted greater control over the divination specialists deputed to military commanders, embedding them within a hierarchical structure. The predictions of individual diviners attached to generals were cross-verified by senior diviners advising the king. The evidence suggests that the process may have begun earlier. During the battle with Turbak in 1532, mentioned earlier, the Ahom-Buranji states that the advice not to cross the river came from deodhais at the royal court, prompting the Ahom king to order his men to remain on their side of the river. ¹¹⁵

The greater oversight of diviners from the early seventeenth century coincides with the broader centralisation of the Ahom administrative system under King Pratap Singha, a process accelerated by the pressures of the Mughal offensive from 1615. Pratap resisted multiple Mughal invasions, the most serious occurring in 1635, after which the tempo of the conflict slowed. The simmering conflict finally bubbled over into a full-blown invasion of the Ahom kingdom by the Mughal emperor Aurangzeb in 1662. The Ahom army was defeated, but the vagaries of the climate forced the Mughals to negotiate a peace settlement in 1663. The Ahoms renewed the war in 1667, defeating the Mughals in the Battle of Saraighat (near Guwahati) in 1671 and forcing them to retreat. Though the victory in the Battle of Saraighat protected the Ahoms from Mughal aggression, a decade of political turmoil immediately followed within the kingdom. Ministerial factions fought battles for power, sometimes with the help of the Mughals. Between 1672 and 1681, seven Ahom monarchs ascended the throne and were later deposed. Taking advantage of this instability, the Mughals reconquered Guwahati in the late 1670s. Political stability returned with the accession of Gadadhar Singha in 1681, although it took nearly a decade for him to consolidate authority through a combination of patronage and coercion. The Ahoms fought another battle with the Mughals in 1682 at Itakhuli, defeating them and retaking Guwahati. It was the last Ahom–Mughal conflict. ¹¹⁶

In 1616, at the beginning of the war with the Mughals, the Ahoms dispatched an army against them. During a war council, the generals consulted the deodhais to determine whether reinforcements could reach them if the army crossed the Luit River. After osteomantic divination confirmed it, the army marched to Sesa, where reinforcements subsequently joined them. The commanders then sought further clarification on whether it was safe to hold their position. Receiving a favourable divination, the commanders reported their decision to the king at Chamdhara (a village in Kaliabor). The king, however, instructed the court deodhais to verify the generals’ decision through fowl-leg divination. After they confirmed the generals’ decision, the king authorised the army to remain in place until further instructions. ¹¹⁷

During the Ahom–Mughal wars of the 1660s and 1670s, mantic practitioners were concentrated near the Ahom king and the army commanders. Buranjis note that during the Mughal invasion of 1661–63, two ganakas were deputed to the commander, and that three were deputed during the war of 1667. ¹¹⁸ These numbers are probably an undercount. S. K. Bhuyan states that Lachit Barphukan, the commander during the 1667 war, was supported by at least 12 dolois and 1 deodhai, or 13 divination specialists. ¹¹⁹ The indispensability of diviners to military organisation is further underscored during the reign of Chakradhvaj Singha (r. 1663–69). Ahom generals complained that they could not operate effectively when they lacked access to diviners. They argued that divination specialists were essential for determining the locations of separate Ahom units during operations, thereby enhancing army cohesion. The king accepted this reasoning and distributed the ganakas accordingly. Senior figures such as the Barphukan and the Bargohain were assigned two astrologers each, while lower-ranked officers received one astrologer apiece. ¹²⁰

In the Ahom perception, divination specialists enhanced the army’s efficiency. Yet this arrangement also carried inherent risks. Mantic practitioners could potentially transfer their sympathies and loyalties from the king to the generals, thereby undermining royal authority. Thus, active measures were taken to discourage such shifts in allegiance. Almost immediately after the astrologers were distributed among the Ahom officials, difficulties arose. The Ahom king had summoned some of the commanders fighting the Mughals to court. The officials consulted two recently allocated ganakas, Arjun and Kanu, for an auspicious date for departure. However, their calculations implied that the officials’ death was near, and thus no auspicious date could be divined. The officials, citing this prediction, refused to travel to court. Furious, the king punished the officials and turned his attention to the astrologers whose divinations prevented compliance. When Arjun and Kanu went into hiding, the king imprisoned all the doloi astrologers in Guwahati. He had the astrologers brought before him, threatening execution unless the two absconding astrologers were discovered. One astrologer, Rudra Khari, was mutilated as an example. His nose and ears were cropped, and one of his eyes was extracted. The imprisoned astrologers secured their release by arguing that they could not locate the accused from prison. Arjun was soon captured, though Kanu fled into Bhutia territory. Arjun later escaped from prison by bribing another doloi with 10 rupees. To avoid a repetition of such insubordination, the king decreed that astrologers would be deployed only during battles at Saraighat (Guwahati) and thereafter return to their respective khels (specific work division). Two astrologers without khel affiliations were assigned to the Bargohain with strict orders to execute them if they left Kukurakata Chowky. Yet within a year, Ahom generals again petitioned the king for the restoration of the services of ganakas, claiming that they could not fulfil their duties without them. The king ultimately relented and reinstated the astrologers. ¹²¹

Such anxieties regarding the potential threat posed by diviners surface not only in military contexts but also in narratives concerning the sovereign in the court. The sources hint at discomfort among those in power regarding the abilities attributed to divination specialists. A buranji discusses the career of Chandibar, a daivajna at court, who could answer any question about the past or the present and unfailingly locate individuals. The king repeatedly tested him by concealing himself, but Chandibar always answered correctly. This accuracy alarmed the king, who feared that such powers could be exploited by enemies to discover and harm him wherever he was concealed. As brahmanas could not be killed, the king exiled Chandibar. ¹²² This trope of the gifted daivajna whose abilities threaten the sovereign also occurs in the Katha-Gurucharit, a Vaishnavite hagiography written in 1716. In it, the renowned daivajna Haribar was likewise subjected to repeated tests by the king, with similar results. The account culminates in an episode where an owl, considered inauspicious, lands on a tree near the palace. Haribar interprets the event as an omen of the king’s death. Demonstrating his skill, he shoots the owl through its eye with an arrow by listening to its hoots. This act intensified the king’s fear, for he reasoned that Haribar’s powers could be used to attack him even if he were far away. Thus, Haribar was executed, while his brothers fled the Ahom kingdom and joined a Vaishnavite monastery. ¹²³

These accounts foreground a structural tension in the Ahom state where diviners were deeply integrated into its military, administrative and ritual structures; however, the ruler ultimately maintained his power by policing the boundaries of the diviner’s authority. Fear of misuse is used to justify disciplining or removing specialists whose abilities exceed acceptable limits. These acts reflect a broader pattern; the state wanted divination to serve its ends, not to acquire independent political weight.

Competing Mantic Traditions

To understand the conflict between the mantic traditions practised by deodhais and ganakas, particularly in the eighteenth century, it is necessary to situate these tensions within the wider transformations of the Ahom socio-religious sphere. The introduction has already noted that the Ahoms migrated into the Brahmaputra Valley in the thirteenth century and began expanding their state in the sixteenth century. Between the thirteenth and sixteenth centuries, the region witnessed the emergence of several tribal political formations. Tribes such as the Tai-Ahom, Chutiya, Koch and Dimasa (also known as Kachari) crystallised into rudimentary state structures by the fifteenth century. During this broader phase of state formation, various strands of religious practices coexisted, albeit at varying levels of popularity, and some received state patronage. Over time, the Ahom state became the most powerful regional formation in the Brahmaputra Valley, and its political consolidation was accompanied by royal patronage for brahmanas, Vaishnava monasteries and Mother Goddess cults to enhance legitimacy within a hierarchically organised religious landscape. ¹²⁴

According to Amalendu Guha, the development of the Ahom state unfolded in multiple stages, each revealing shifts in the interaction between brahmanical religion and state formation. The first stage, from 1228 to 1407, was marked by a small Ahom state with a basic peasant polity and limited brahmanical influence. The second stage, from 1407 to 1603, witnessed territorial and administrative expansion, alongside an increase in brahmanical presence. This was facilitated by demographic expansion in the Ahom kingdom and the incorporation of the more developed territories of Koch Hajo (in the western Brahmaputra Valley). In the third stage, from 1603 to 1648, the Ahoms reformed their militia system to counter the Mughal thrust, further centralised the polity, and created new administrative offices. In Guha’s interpretation, the expanding Ahom state now felt a need for a universal religion to strengthen political authority and facilitate more effective revenue extraction. This, he argues, explains the steady advance of brahmanical influence within the Ahom polity from the early seventeenth century. King Pratap Singha (r. 1603–41), despite continuing Ahom ritual practices, patronised brahmanas and temples. He also revived the Brahmottar, Devottar and Dharmottar land grants and employed brahmanas in diplomatic missions. After expelling the Mughals in 1682, the Ahom state entered a fourth stage, which lasted till 1770, characterised by territorial consolidation and the further adoption of brahmanical practices. The fifth stage began with a civil war that led to the disintegration and depopulation of the Ahom kingdom. Subsequently, the Burmese occupied the kingdom, and finally, in 1826, with the British annexation of the Ahom state, its decline was complete. ¹²⁵

Even if Guha’s strict periodisation is not accepted mechanically, the Ahom state’s expansion from the early sixteenth century was accompanied by increased patronage of brahmanical institutions. A central factor in this growing brahmanisation was the rise of the neo-Vaishnavite movement in the Brahmaputra Valley, most notably associated with the medieval saint Sankaradeva (1449–1568). He proselytised a monotheistic worship of Vishnu in satras (monasteries) and namghars (prayer halls) instead of temples, eschewed complex rituals and downplayed the ritual superiority of brahmanas. ¹²⁶ Ahom patronage towards Vaishnavism has been seen as part of a calculated strategy to mobilise wider social support against the Mughal threat by securing durable alliances from the non-Ahom population. ¹²⁷ In the sixteenth century, most satras were founded within the Koch kingdom in western Assam; however, in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, their establishment shifted to the Ahom kingdom in eastern Assam. ¹²⁸ Jayadhvaj Singha (r. 1648–63) was the first Ahom ruler to formally adopt Vaishnavism in 1654. ¹²⁹ S. N. Sarma notes that from the accession of Chakradhvaj Singha (r. 1663–70) to the coronation of Gadadhar Singha in 1681, Vaishnava preceptors operated with comparatively little interference, though persecutions never truly stopped. This freedom was a result of the Ahom state’s preoccupation with successive Mughal invasions and the factional struggles among the nobility over control of the throne. ¹³⁰

Under Gadadhar Singha (r. 1681–96), Vaishnavism, which was becoming the dominant religious influence at court, lost royal favour. In the latter half of his reign, he persecuted Vaishnavite monasteries and monks. The Tungkhungia Buranji attributes this policy to his apprehensions regarding their wealth and political influence. ¹³¹ Amalendu Guha identifies an additional factor: the growing number of monks claiming exemption from corvée labour, diminishing the Ahom state’s manpower and economic base. ¹³² Rudra Singha (r. 1696–1714) abandoned overt persecution but increased the supervision of neo-Vaishnavite institutions. A comprehensive register of all the satras was created, granting official recognition to 1,230 big and small establishments. Recognition ensured patronage but also entailed closer regulation. The newly created office of Satriya-Barua inspected the monasteries, ensured adherence to state diktats and represented the king at investiture ceremonies of new adhikaras (monastic heads). ¹³³ Simultaneously, there was a greater push for brahmanisation. At a congregation of Vaishnavite monastic heads in 1702, Rudra decreed that sudra monastic heads could no longer initiate brahmanas. ¹³⁴ Over the eighteenth century, the Ahom state continued to interfere in the inner workings of Vaishnavite monasteries through a combination of patronage and coercion. The next major confrontation between the kingdom and neo-Vaishnavism occurred with the Moamaria rebellion of 1770, which eventually led to the kingdom’s decline.

In the aftermath of intensified intervention in neo-Vaishnavite institutions, the Ahom state increasingly sought alternative sources of religious legitimacy. The upper echelons of the Ahom polity turned towards Saktism. Between the thirteenth and sixteenth centuries, as new state formations emerged in Northeast India, they sought political legitimacy through brahmanical ideology, constructing temples and sponsoring public rituals to generate internal cohesion. This strategy heightened the importance of local Mother Goddess cults, whose worship legitimised the new political authorities among diverse social groups who continued to venerate such deities. ¹³⁵ The Ahoms had also begun patronising Saktism for the same purpose, but this support intensified under Rudra Singha. He invited Krishnaram Bhattacharyya from Bengal to assume charge of the Kamakhya temple, the most important Mother Goddess temple within the Ahom kingdom. Krishnaram also initiated members of the royal family while introducing more orthodox forms of worship in the temples of Guwahati, thereby reinforcing the brahmanical orientation of court-sponsored worship. ¹³⁶

The shift in patronage to these newly favoured religious institutions resulted in a gradual diminution of traditional Ahom religious practices over the eighteenth century. The process was marked by quotidian conflicts between Ahom priests and the newly patronised religious practices, yet the overall trend was clear. A prominent example was the steady brahmanisation of royal mortuary practices. At the beginning of the eighteenth century, in accordance with established Ahom custom, royal bodies were buried in maidams (burial mounds). Yet, the growing adoption of brahmanical norms resulted in hybrid practices. In 1714, King Rudra Singha was interred in a maidam, but his effigy was cremated. Under his successors, cremation gained ground among the nobility, and in 1769, after considerable debate, the remains of King Rajeswar Singha (r. 1751–69) were cremated while his bones were interred in a maidam. ¹³⁷ These changes provoked resistance from Ahom priests. In 1770, following the Moamaria rebellion, Ahom priests convinced the monarch that the rebellion stemmed from the failure to bury Rajeswar in a maidam. To remedy the situation, an effigy of the dead king was taken to his maidam and the Rik-Khvan ceremony (a traditional Ahom rite to revitalise the royal life force and, by extension, the kingdom) was conducted on it. ¹³⁸ Despite such opposition, cremation became customary for Ahom kings, while their bones were deposited in maidams. The stakes of this conflict were considerable. Within Ahom cosmology, ancestor worship conferred a sacral status upon the maidams, which were not merely burial mounds but mausoleums where a part of the dead king’s spirit continued to reside. As a result, maidams also functioned as sites of worship. A priest known as Deodhai Phukan (Ma-chāi Phukan) performed daily offerings and illumination to worship the royal ancestors. ¹³⁹

As noted earlier, the turn towards Vaishnavism and Mother Goddess cults formed part of a broader and sustained process of Hinduisation within the Ahom polity. This process is also evident in the court’s growing reliance on Hindu astrology (jyotiṣa), a development that progressively displaced the authority of the osteomantic practices traditionally performed by Ahom priests. ¹⁴⁰ Bipul Bhattacharyya argues that Ahom rulers first began consulting Hindu astrologers during the reign of Khora Raja (r. 1552–1603). ¹⁴¹ The article has already noted the 1563 recruitment of the daivajna Suryyavar Surya-vipra from Kanauj, facilitated by the Ahom–Koch wars, which illustrates an early incorporation of astrological specialists into the Ahom court. ¹⁴² Their importance increased during the seventeenth century, particularly during the Ahom–Mughal wars.

Although both systems of divination—astrology practised by jyotiṣa and osteomancy practised by Ahom priests—were employed by the Ahom state, tensions existed between them. From the mid-seventeenth century, sections of the Ahom elite embraced Vaishnavism, a development looked upon with disfavour by Ahom religious specialists. They blamed King Jayadhvaj’s initiation into Vaishnavism in 1654 for the Mughal invasions of 1661–63. Chakradhvaj Singha (r. 1663–69) sought to placate Ahom religious opinion by offering worship at the principal Ahom temple in Charaideo before renewing the war with the Mughals. When the nobility objected to the war on logistical grounds, the king conducted chicken-bone divination and brushed aside their concerns when the omens emerged favourable. ¹⁴³ Gadadhar Singha’s purge of Vaishnavite monasteries in the 1690s was at least partially encouraged by this climate of religious contestation. He also constructed at least three additional temples to Ahom gods, whereas before there was only the temple of Charaideo. ¹⁴⁴ These moves can be seen as an attempt to shore up support among groups aligned with Ahom religious traditions.

During Rudra Singha’s reign (r. 1696–1714), the Ahom aristocracy continued to rely on both astrology and osteomancy for political decision-making. In 1706, when Rudra decided to invade his neighbours, his nobles suggested that he should first consult the Hindu Shastras and then the Ahom Shastras, proceeding only if both concurred on the endeavour. ¹⁴⁵ When Rudra asked for a propitious date, his ganakas and dolois stated that Venus was in an inauspicious position. Furious, he turned to his deodhais, whose osteomantic calculations predicted success in the campaign to rescue the Kachari king from the Jaintia kingdom. Rudra then launched his campaign, thereby superseding the ganaka astrological prediction with Ahom osteomancy. ¹⁴⁶ The episode not only illustrates the competition between the two mantic systems but also demonstrates that the authority of vatic pronouncements ultimately depended on royal endorsement.

However, the situation changed markedly over the following half-century. As noted earlier, from the reign of Gadadhar Singha (r. 1681–96) onwards, rapid shifts in religious affiliation and patronage are visible. Epigraphic records are a major method of tracing these developments. The earliest copper plates documenting land grants date to Gadadhar’s reign. From the time of Siva Singha (r. 1714–44), there is a substantial increase in inscriptions recording donations of land and families to temples and monasteries. ¹⁴⁷ Royal patronage also extended to embedding ganaka families within neo-Vaishnavite institutions, thereby enhancing their status and promoting the institutional presence of astrology. From at least the 1730s, ganakas were being assigned to Vaishnavite monasteries. In 1735, 280 families of different castes were allotted to the Barpeta satra, among whom one was a ganaka. ¹⁴⁸

This development is noteworthy in light of the ambivalent treatment of divination in Vaishnavite texts such as the Katha-Gurucharit, composed in 1714 at the Barpeta satra. The text narrates the tale of a daivajna disciple of Sankaradeva who persisted in performing astrological calculations (jyotiṣa) despite Sankaradeva’s express orders to desist and devote himself to the recitation of Krishna’s name. Sankaradeva, therefore, integrated astrological information in the ‘Anadi-Patana’ section of his Bhagavat translation. The disciple then abandoned astrology and turned fully to devotional worship of Krishna by studying ‘Anadi-Patana’. ¹⁴⁹ A further episode in the same text highlights this ambivalence even more. A daivajna disciple began predicting the lifespan of fellow monks, causing distress. Therefore, Sankaradeva ordered the daivajna to cast his astrological texts into a nearby lake, but stopped him at the last moment when he realised that such texts were required to determine festival and fasting dates for the monks. The text later heightens this tension when Sankaradeva, who forbade the prediction of the monks’ death, asked the disciple to predict his own date and mode of death. ¹⁵⁰ These episodes illustrate the ambiguity of Vaishnavism towards astrology and the tenacity of astrological practice among certain sections to the point that accommodation had to be negotiated within the Vaishnavite framework.

The incorporation of ganakas into monastic institutions was not confined to a single establishment. Other satras likewise received grants that included astrologer families. For example, in 1785, the Ahom kings donated land and service families to the Dakhinpat satra, among whom were two ganaka families. ¹⁵¹ The royal patronage of jyotiṣa went beyond assigning daivajnas to monasteries. In 1752, the Ahom monarchy constructed the Navagraha temple in Guwahati and dedicated it to the nine planetary deities central to Hindu astrology. The following year, a tank known as the Navagraha tank was excavated adjacent to the temple. Popularly called Silpukhuri, the tank has nine corners, symbolically reflecting the planetary scheme. The Ahoms commemorated the creation of these structures through a series of inscriptions that recorded the event. ¹⁵²

The ascendancy of brahmanical mantic practices at court diminished the previous privileged position of Ahom religious specialists. The article has already illustrated aspects of this shift through mortuary practices. Divination results recorded in the Ahom-Buranji, written in the early nineteenth century by deodhais, have a more confrontational attitude towards brahmanical divinatory practices. Terwiel locates this animosity in the competition between Ahom priests and ganaka astrologers. The conflict intensified in the aftermath of the Moamaria rebellion of 1770, which further exacerbated the precariousness of Ahom religious traditions. After studying the Ahom myth of origin in the unpublished manuscript of the Ahom-Buranji, Terwiel notes that the list of Ahom kings and the opening paragraph are written entirely in the Tai language. He argues that, although some ideas and images of origin were borrowed from Hindu thought, they were presented in the Tai language in an Ahom fashion to remind the rulers of their Tai ancestry. By this point, the coronation ceremony was no longer the sole preserve of Ahom priests, as Vaishnava monks also blessed the king. Creation myths were chanted by Ahom priests at ceremonies to legitimise themselves and were part of their professional literature. Ahom expeditions to Upper Burma around this time brought new information about their past, reviving this ceremony. However, Terwiel postulates that its frequent use in the late eighteenth century did not signal renewed strength but the growing vulnerability of the Ahom priests. ¹⁵³

In the Ahom-Buranji, recurrent tragedies befall the royal family and the kingdom because successive kings disregard the vatic statements of Ahom priests in favour of ganaka astrologers. In 1762, a conspiracy against the Barbarua (a high official) is linked to the relocation of the king’s residence to Rangpur on the advice of brahmanas and ganakas; instead of Taimung, as recommended by the Ahom priests. ¹⁵⁴ Again, in 1773, encouraged by brahmana priests and against the advice of Ahom priests, the king shifted to Rangpur instead of Garhgaon. Consequently, his mother fell sick and died after nine days of suffering. ¹⁵⁵ The pattern recurs in 1775 when an owl—a familiar harbinger of tragedy in Ahom chronicles—perched on the royal palace. The king consulted the deodhais, who performed a ceremony to remove the evil effects. Nevertheless, more harbingers of misfortune appeared, such as monkeys falling from the sky and boiled rice sprouting, among other signs. Therefore, the deodhais counselled the king to conduct sacrifices to the goddess. Shortly thereafter, when the king expressed a desire to visit Sonarinagar, the deodhais warned that it was inauspicious to conduct sacrifices at the beginning of the year, but the brahmana and ganaka priests favoured it. When an advance guard was sent to Sonarinagar to prepare for the royal visit, an important noble died, and rebellions commenced in the kingdom. ¹⁵⁶ The narrative thus frames political instability as the consequence of misplaced mantic trust. The text leaves no doubt in the reader’s mind that the rebellions or misfortunes resulted from the king’s decision to disregard the predictions of Ahom priests, whether by shifting to an inauspicious city or initiating travel on an inauspicious date.

The same narrative logic structures the buranji’s account of the Moamaria rebellion of 1770. When the rebellion began in 1770, deodhai and bailung priests examined chicken-bones and found the omens unfavourable for an offensive against the rebels. The Barbarua dismissed their warnings and persuaded the king to attack on the dates deemed auspicious by the brahmana and ganaka priests, but explicitly inauspicious in the Ahom calendar. ¹⁵⁷ The Ahom army retreated under the onslaught of the Moamaria forces, prompting the nobles to advise the king to abandon the capital and relocate to Saraighat. Consultation with the deodhais again yielded unfavourable omens, and they declared the year to be as unfortunate as 1661, when the Mughals almost annexed the Ahom kingdom. Nevertheless, under the Barbarua’s influence, the king followed brahmana and ganaka astrological calculations and departed. He was subsequently captured and imprisoned by the Moamarias, while the nobles who had supported the astrological calculations fled. ¹⁵⁸ By attributing political collapse to the neglect of Ahom diviners and the patronage of a rival mantic tradition, the buranji articulates priestly anxieties and claims to authority. It reflects the efforts of Ahom priests to reassert their position within the religio-political and administrative order amid increasing competition from brahmanical and Vaishnavite groups.

Conclusion

The article foregrounded the activities of two main categories of state-sponsored mantic specialists in the Ahom kingdom: Ahom priests, who practised osteomancy, and daivajnas, who employed astrological techniques. The initial section addressed the history of astrology in India and its institutionalisation in the Brahmaputra Valley through the daivajna caste. The section further explored the origins and methodology of osteomancy practised by Ahom priests. Historical accounts are supplemented with anthropological and ethnographical data to fill gaps in our knowledge. However, it is worth noting that the Brahmaputra Valley was home to a diverse array of divinatory practices beyond osteomancy and astrology, many of which remain undocumented in written records. Also, even Ahom priests practised astrology alongside osteomancy. Therefore, it is fruitless to make a binary division between these different traditions.

In pre-modern India, natural events were commonly understood as occurring at the behest of specific deities, serving as omens that enabled divination as a method of forewarning and ritual mitigation. Within this cosmological framework, the conduct of kings was directly related to the health of the realm, and divine messages, often conveyed through dreams, were interpreted by both religious and divinatory specialists.

Battlefield divination was one of the chief functions of mantic practitioners, who served as advisors in military decision-making. Through divinatory procedures, such as the selection of commanders, they influenced strategic decisions. By the seventeenth century, divination specialists embedded within the army became part of a hierarchical system in which their pronouncements were vetted by diviners attached to the court. However, their influence could sometimes become problematic. Close association with military leaders could foster competing loyalties, prompting the state to adopt punitive and preventive measures to preserve the primacy of royal authority.

The profession of the divination specialist entailed substantial risk. Practitioners were vulnerable to coercion, physical danger and punishment, particularly in instances where their pronouncements proved false. Despite these challenges, successful diviners could attain prestige and patronage, as the Ahom state actively sought out talented diviners.

Contestations between different mantic traditions further complicated this landscape. Neo-Vaishnavism, while critical of divination, nonetheless acknowledged the indispensability of astrology for proper religious observance. In the early eighteenth century, osteomancy held primacy in the Ahom court; yet, this dominance waned by the century’s end, as astrology, practised by daivajnas, gained ascendancy. This shift is discernible in buranjis authored by Ahom priests, which exhibit hostility towards daivajna divinatory practices. The decline of osteomancy was compounded by the political fragmentation of the Ahom kingdom in the nineteenth century, marking an irrevocable transformation/decline in the role and authority of Ahom priests.