ROOTS OF MEDIEVAL ASSAM 61 thereby giving sustenance to the rising population and to the state apparati "8 This significant change in the polity i.e., its transition to a state which took place between 1497-1539 was helped not only by the internal changes mentioned above but also through the conquests of new territories and the resultant increase in population. Nevertheless, in the hierarchy of factors which led to transition of the Ahoms from a tribe to a state, the role of the Ahoms, an advanced plough using tribe, in extending wet-rice cultivation and their subjugation of neighbouring people is highlighted in Guha's analysis. Guha also discusses at some length some of the special features of the medieval socio-economic scenario, which include a favourable demographic trend (linked to an extension of wet-rice culture), the nature of the village settlements, the growth of petty commodity production, the absence of strict segmentation in society and the Hinduisation of tribal ruling families. 3. While acknowledging the presence of an earlier political tradition in Assam in the form of bhuyan rajas, Guha has highlighted the political fragmentation in the 13th century when many parts of Assam "lapsed into retarded conditions."9 Two inscriptions dated to the 13th century are significant in this context—the Kanaibarasi rock inscription found at Gauhati10 and the Gachtal stone inscription from the Mikir hills district.11 Both these inscriptions refer to the eifective repulsion of the Muslim invaders. The fact that the Turko-Afghan invaders were repulsed by the indigenous rulers of Assam in the 13th century (the non-mention of this fact by Guha is rather surprising since he takes the 13th century as the starting point) is something that Guha must make a note of, if the essential character of the political fragmentation that Assam underwent in this period is to be understood usefully. Furthermore, the rise of the Chutiya kingdom in upper Assam with its capital at Sadiya in this period merited some discussion since the centre of their kingdom was not far from the centre of the Ahom polity. Guha does recognize that "the Ahom migrants did not come into a politically void region"12 but does not think it necessary to explore the nature or the existence of culture contact between various regions of Assam or even between neighbours in upper Assam. Early medieval Assam was not merely Ahom Assam. Various states in Assam in this period cannot be dismissed cursorily. For instance, the Chutiyas have been dismissed in one line which does not tell us anything about the nature of their kingdom except that they were completely absorbed into the Ahom state by the early 16th century. 4. We, incidentally, do not deny that some kind of fragmentation had taken place in Assam but would argue that the process set in quite early, in the 9th century, in fact. We get a good deal of information on this point from the epigraphic records. The last epigraphs available from the reign of a king who enjoyed a loose kind of hegemony over Assam was Dharmapala of the Pala dynasty of Kamrupa whose rei^i can be placed in the first half of the 12th century A.D.33 After Dharnwyala, the kingdom seems to have been split up into a number of parts. The five