Tai Ahom International

The tribal names of the Ahom kings usually commenced with Su, meaning “tiger” (cf. Singh,lion), and ended with pha, meaning “heaven.” Thus, Sukapha, “a tiger coming from heaven” (ka, come); Sunenpha, “a beautiful tiger of heaven” (Nen,beautiful); Supatpha, “a lace-like tiger of heaven” (Khrung, furious). In a few cases the final syllable was not Pha, as in the case of Suhungmung, “the tiger of a renowned  country,” (hung,renowned and mung,country). The kings’ Hindu names were often the Assamese equivalents of those given them by the Deodhais. GadadharSingh was so called because gada is the Assamese translation of the Ahom pat; and Rudra Singh, because rudra in Assamese corresponds to  Khrung in Ahom. It has been suggested that the first syllable (su) is the same as the Shan Chao, meaning great, and ought to be written chu. This, however does not appear to be the case. The word Chao also means “great” or “God” (Deb) in Ahom, and it is frequently used in addition to the regular prefix Su; Sunenpha. for instance, is described as Chao Sunenpha on his coins. In this connection it may be mentioned that the Assamese title Svargadeb is the equivalent of the Ahom and Shan Chao-pha, which is also the origin of the Burmese termtsaubwa. The word Gohain, the title of the original three great officers of State, is also a translation of the Ahom Chao. In the first instance, the word was Gosain, but the Ahoms pronounced the Sash, and the spelling was altered accordingly. The Bor Gohain was known in Ahom as Chaothaolung (God-old-great), the Burha Gohain, as Chaophrangmung (God-wise-country) and the Barpatra Gohain as Chaosenglung (God-holy-great). The Bar Barua was known to the Ahoms as Phukenlung (male-noble-great) and the Bar Phukan as Phukanlung (male-origin-great)

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