Person · Ahom commander · India
Lachit Barphukan
The Ahom commander who held the Brahmaputra against Ram Singh's much larger Mughal force and broke it at Saraighat in March 1671 in a river battle fought with light boats against heavier ones in a narrow channel — the engagement that ended Mughal attempts on Assam.
- Date
- 1622–1672
- Function
- Military & resistance
- Patron dynasty
- Ahom
- Confidence
- Not assessed
- Location
- 26.150, 91.670
Worth knowing
The story that he beheaded his own uncle for slacking at the Saraighat embankment, saying his uncle was not greater than his country, is the most repeated thing about him and is from the buranjis. He was already ill at the battle and died within a year. The National Defence Academy's best cadet receives a gold medal in his name.
About the place
Placed at Saraighat on the Brahmaputra near Guwahati, where he fought the battle he is remembered for. He died at Jorhat and his maidam is at Hola Bhadi.
Connections (2)
- CampaignRaja Man Singh I
The Mughal force Lachit Barphukan destroyed at Saraighat was commanded by Ram Singh I of Amber, son of Mirza Raja Jai Singh and a Kachhwaha Rajput in Mughal service — so the battle was fought between an Assamese Tai commander and a Rajput general of a Turco-Mongol empire, on the Brahmaputra. Ram Singh had brought some four thousand boats and thirty thousand infantry and lost to a fleet of light craft using the narrows.
- Patronage networkCharaideo Moidams
Lachit Barphukan held the Brahmaputra for a dynasty that had already ruled Assam for four hundred and fifty years and would rule for another hundred and fifty, and whose kings are buried under the vaulted moidams at Charaideo. His victory at Saraighat is why that burial ground continued to be used by an Ahom and not a Mughal succession.
On these journeys
Sources
Wikipedia, “Lachit Borphukan”. The Ahom buranji chronicles (trans. S.K. Bhuyan); Edward Gait, A History of Assam (1906).
Open Lachit Barphukan in the repository →