THE AHOM POLITICAL SYSTEM 5 property. These conditions created the objective basis for an urge for statehood so that the community could reconcile the nascent class antagonisms while still maintaining the public functions for general benefit. At this juncture, the noble and relatively wealthy families emerged as a special privileged aristocracy, a ruling stratum as distinct from the rest of the tribe. It became a sort of a 'class' though still at its rudimentary stage, and the authority structure it represented was the inchoate state. The actual process of a tribe's breaking up into classes and transformation into a state was a long-drawn one, and it reached its terminal point in more than one way, depending on the circumstances in each case. The period from the 13th to the 16th century saw the emergence and development of a large number of tribal political formations in north-east India. The Chutiya, the Tai-Ahom, the Koch, the Dimasa (Kachari), the Tripuri, the Meithei (Manipuri), the Khasi (Khyriem) and the Pamar (Jaintia) - all these tribes crystallised into rudimentary state formations by the 15th century. In each case, the process involved transformation of some of the organs of the pre-existing tribal organisation and replacement of the rest by new organs which facilitated usurpation of the public power by a privileged class in the making. At this stage, generally, a written language (in most cases not the tribe's own) was also adopted for purposes of the Court. The most developed of the tribes in the 15th century were the Ghutiyas. Their kingdom was annexed and absorbed by the Tai-Ahoms by 1523. The remaining tribes however went on elaborating and sophisticating their respective state formations until their subjugation by the British in the early 19th century. The process meanwhile involved the spread of wet rice cultivation and the use of plough, the subjugation of neighbouring peoples, the migration of scribes and artisans from a relatively advanced area to the tribal kingdoms, a greater or lesser degree of Hindaisation of the tribal ruling families and the growth of petty commodity production to a limited extent. In this paper, our objective is to examine specifically how the Tai-Ahoms — a segment of the Mao-Shan sub-tribe of the Tais of southeast Asia—organised themselves politically in the course of their settling down in Upper Assam after 1228 A D. Our acquaintance with Assamese chronicles, many of which are now available in well-edited, published form, and some even in English translation, is one reason why we take up the Tai-Ahoms for a case study.2 The other reason is that the problem was partly dealt with in some of our earlier studies which could be referred to for details.3 We propose to show here how the feudal-type Ahom political system, rooted in patriarchal property rights, emerged from an earlier social base of hierarchically balanced lineage groups and then attained its full-fledged statehood in due course. In doing so, we shall first take note of two eye-witness accounts of the system — one relating to 1662-63 and another to the 1790s. We shall then