Moamoria rebellion

The Moamoria rebellion (1769–1806) was the 18th century conflict between the Morans, adherents of the Moamara Sattra, and the Ahom kings. This led to widespread popular discontent against the Ahom king and the nobles and to two periods in which the Ahom king lost control of the capital. Retaking the capital was accompanied by a massacre of subjects, leading to a steep depopulation of large tracts. The Ahom king failed to retake the entire kingdom, a portion in the north-east, Bengmara, became virtually independent.

The Ahom kingdom emerged from the rebellion much weakened. About one half of the population of the kingdom perished and the economy was totally destroyed. The weakened Ahom kingdom fell to a Burmese invasion which ultimately led to colonization by the British.

The Ahom kingdom was entering a crisis, as the Paik system on which the state was based, was unable to adapt to the changing economy and the emerging social classes. The rise of the sattras was one of the reason for the leakage of manpower from the Paik system, and as a result the Ahom kingdom and the sattras came into increasing conflict. Moamara sattra, with its adherent from the Moran tribes, were followers of the non-conformist Kala-samhati sect that competed against the royalist sattras belonging to other sects. The Ahom kingdom watched the growth of this sattra with discomfort and heaped insult and repression on the followers of this sattra.

In course of time, the Moamoria guru compromised with the Ahom rulers and the rebels drew inspiration from magico-religious cult of night worshipers, a mixture of tribal fertility rites and Tantrism.

Srimanta Sankardeva established the Mahapuruxiya Dharma in the 16th century, a proselytizing religion that opened itself to all including the Muslims and tribesmen. The religion provided opportunities for social and economic improvements to common tribesmen, and the sattras provided a safe haven from mandatory labor under the Paik system.

The Ahom rulers saw a threat and Sankardeva himself had to escape to the Koch kingdom during the reign of Suklenmung to avoid persecution. A later king, Prataap Singha, demolished the Kalabari and Kuruabahi sattras and his successors followed a similar policy of oppression. Jayadhwaj Singha reversed this policy and his successors up to Sulikphaa Lora Roja tried to come to terms with the sattras. This policy was again reversed during the reign of Gadadhar Singha, who began persecuting the sattras. His son, Rudra Singha tried to isolate the more liberal—and thus most threatening to the Ahom state—of the non-Brahmin sattras by encouraging the Brahmin sattras. When he realized this policy was not bearing fruit, he initiated a policy to accord state support to saktism, the historical and theological bete noire of the Mahapuruxiya dharma, to contain further sattra influence. This led to more persecutions, the most notable under Bor Roja Phuleshwari Kunwonri during the reign of Siba Singha. This unresolved conflict finally exploded into the Moamoria rebellion in the 18th century that so weakened the Ahom kingdom that it collapsed in the 19th century.

...
Wikipedia