Ancient Assam has a long history in cultural field. All the Tais of Northeast India possess a rich manuscript culture. The Mongoloid origin Tai groups inhabit mainly in large tracts of Southeast Asia viz. Sothern China, Northern Vietnam, Laos, Thailand, Cambodia and Myanmar. In India, the Tai people live in the Northeastern parts of Assam, Arunachal and Manipur who are known as Tai Ahom, Tai Khamti, Tai Phake, Tai Aiton, Tai Khamyang, Tai Turung and Tai Lai. A Tai Mao group, which was migrated from Southern China later, came to be known as Ahom brought with them Tai scripts and written language when they migrated to the Brahmaputra Valley in 1228 A.D. They had recorded all their significant events in manuscript form. All the Ahom documents and literary works were compiled in their own script and language. The Tai Ahom language is now found in manuscript form. Most of the Ahom manuscripts usually written in Sanchi tree bark, the bark of aloe tree (Aquilaria agallocha) dated to the 17th and 18th centuries. The Tai Ahom manuscripts represent all aspects of political events, tradition and culture of the Ahom people and it also played a vital role in maintaining the Ahom’s cultural identity. The paper is prepared to highlight the classification and the content analysis of the Tai Ahom manuscripts.
Phukon et al. (Sun,) studied this question.