infusion of Non-Aryan words picked up from the neighbour- ing hill tribes; but that has in no way affected the structure of the language, which has remained always Aryan. To ascertain the beginning of the language, therefore, we must go back to the time when the first Aryan settlement took place in the country. The ancient history of Assam has yet to be written, and what goes by the name of its history helps us but little in fixing the date of the earliest Hindu colonisation with any degree of certainty. But from the mention of the kingdom of Pragjyotisha in the great epics of India, and in several Puranas of great antiquity, it can fairly be presumed, that this valley was long known to the great Hindu race, and so its fertile soil and the inferiority ot its original inhabitants and their want of religion could not have failed to attract the early attention of the adven turous Hindu warriors and priests, as affording the best field for their action. In fact, some copper-plates are still extant recounting a long line of kings, who ruled over Kamarupa, descending from Bhagadatta, the contemporary of the great Yudhisthira, | The first authentic account of ancient Kamarupa has been left by Hiuen-Tsiang, the Chinese traveller, who visi- ted the country in 340 A.D, He found abundant Deva temples; the people adoring and sacrificing to the Devas, and having no faith in Buddha; he found the manner of the people simple and honest, their nature very impetuous and wild, and their memories retentive. Then, the reigning King was Kumar Bhaskaravarman, and from the time that his family seized the land and assumed the government, there alapsed a thousand generations, so the Buddhist pilgrim says, Men of high talent from distant regions seeking after : office visited his dominions. The lampago of the people differed a little from that of id-India. This account । Dr. Buniti Kum Chatterji in of opinion that this "diering little" s ফoticed by the observant pilgrim may have reference b.tho modifications of Aryan poindi first
