Origin of name

The land of Assam was known by various names in the past in ancient Hindu scriptures like the Mahabharata, and Kamarupa in the early medieval times. After the decline of the Kamarupa kingdom in the 12th century, the land that included a part of the old Kamarupa kingdom and regions to the east of it was ruled by a Shan people, who called themselves Tai, but who were called Ahoms by the others. This kingdom lasted for nearly 600 years. Satyendra Nath Sarma writes [Assamese Literature, Harrassowitz, Wiesbaden, 1976]

While the Shan invaders called themselves Tai, they came to be referred to as Asam, Asam and sometimes as Acam by the indigenous people of the country. The modern Assamese word Ahom by which the Tai people are known is derived from Asam or Asam. The epithet applied to the Shan conquerors was subsequently transferred to the country over which they ruled and thus the name Kamarupa was replaced by Asam, which ultimately took the Sanskritized form Asama, meaning “unequalled, peerless or uneven” [Banikanta Kakati: Assamese: Its Formation and Development, p2]

Early documented mentions

Therefore, the name Assam is of relatively recent origin. One of the first unambiguous references come from Thomas Bowrey in 1663 about Mir Jhumla’s death: “They lost the best of Nabobs, the Kingdome of Acham, and, by consequence, many large priviledges” (Bowrey, Thomas, A Geographical Account of Countries around Bay of Bengal, ed Temple, R. C., Hakluyt Society’s Publications). Tavernier’s “Travels in India”, published in 1676 uses the spelling “Assen” for Assam in the French original.

The official chronicler of Mir Jhumla too calls the place “Asam” (The Indian Antiquary, July 1887, pp222-226). Most scholars accept that the first known mention of the word Assam today is in a stanza from the Assamese Bhagavad Puran composed/translated about the middle of the 16th century which described the ethnic groups of the region (Srimadbhagavad, skandha 2, H Duttabaruah and Co., Nalbari, pp-38) transcribed in iTrans:

Later adoption

After the fall of the Ahoms and the conquest by the British in 1826, “Assam” was used to denote first the principality of the erstwhile Ahoms, and later the British province. Soon, the province was expanded to include regions that were not part of historical Ahom kingdom. The boundaries of Assam have been redrawn many times after that, but the name Assam remained.

Other mentions

The word asama or assama was used during the time while Bhaskarvarman ruled Kamarupa. Then the present upper Assam used to emit poisonous gasses and was uninhabitable. Some of the Kamrupi criminals escaped to this land during those days in order to avoid punishment, as reported in the travel notes of the Chinese traveler Xuanzang.

Those people were also called asama or assama. Xuanzang not traveling back via this route returning to China was because he was worried about attacks from asama or assama people. In Kamrupi, the term can also mean one who is not comparable with, in addition to weird/sinner, but no yester year Kamrupi scriptures referred the land asama or asam or asom.

The British general did not choose the name from any of the above, but concatenated it from the scientific name “Anthera Assama”, i.e., he dropped “Anthera” and “a” of “Assama”. This was done for the first time while British created “Upper Assam State” after the “Yandabu Accord”.

Anthera Assama was discovered long before the Yandabu Accord, and assama here implies unequal or not comparable with - assama was chosen as part of the scientific name because the silkworm can only live in the climate of foothills of Eastern Himalaya.an as thing.