Buranjis - Chronicle of Assam History : History of Assam
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Buranjis Literally, Buranji means “a store that teaches the ignorant”, are kind of a historical chronicles, written initially in Ahom and afterwards in Assamese language. The first such Buranji was written on the instructions of the first Ahom dynasty founder king Sukaphaa.
There were two kinds of Buranjis:
- One kind of Buranjis maintained by the state (official) and the other maintained by families. Many such manuscripts were written by scribes under the office of the Likhakar Barua, which were based on state papers, diplomatic correspondences, judicial proceedings, etc.
- Other kind of Buranjis were written by nobles or by people under their supervision, sometimes anonymously. These documents reveal chronology of events, language, culture, society and the inner workings of the state machinery of the kingdom.
They were written in “simple, lucid and unambiguous but expressive language with utmost brevity and least exaggeration.” The tradition of writing Buranjis survived more than six hundred years well into the British period, till a few decades after the demise of the Ahom kingdom.
Peculiar to Assamese literature are the buranjis, chronicles written in a prose tradition taken to Assam by the Ahom people migrating here. Assamese buranjis date from the 16th century, though the genre appears much earlier in the original Tai language of the Ahom.
The Buranjis not only describe the Ahom kingdom, but also the neighbours (Chutiya, Kachari and Tripura Buranjis) and those with whom the Ahom kingdom had diplomatic and military contacts (Padshah Buranji). They were written on the barks of the Sanchi tree or aloe wood.
Western Assamese was the dominant literary language and the “sole medium of all ancient Asamiya literature including the Burañjīs written in the Ahom courts”. The Eastern Assamese dialect became the standard literary language of the region in around the early-19th century.
Gargaya, a style of Assamese writing that developed between the 17th and 19th centuries, was notably used in eastern Assam for writing Buranjis.
List of Well-known Buranjis
- Assam Buranji by Harakanta Baruah
- Assam Buranji by Kasinath Tamuli Phukan
- Asamar Padya Buranji (Buranji of Assam in verse)
- Ahom Buranji by Golap Chandra Barua
- Changrung Phukanar Buranji
- Deodhai Asam Buranji
- Chutiya Buranji
- Purani Assam Buranji by Hemchandra Goswami
- Satasari Assam Buranji by Surya Kumar Bhuyan
- Tripura Buranji by Ratna Kandali and Arjun Das
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