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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 15 March 2011
The Ahoms are a tribe of the Tai branch of the Indo-Chinese. They conquered Assam early in the thirteenth century a.d., and held it, as the ruling nation, for many centuries. Their language, which is now extinct, was an old form of the Tai language from which Siamese and Shan have sprung. It is now known by tradition to a few priests of the old Ahom religion. It had a considerable literature (including several valuable historical works), manuscripts of which are still extant. Some years ago the Assamese Government deputed a native official, Babu Golap Chandra Baruā, to learn the language and translate such documents as were of value and had survived. He is, I believe, the only person who knows both Ahom and English. Through his assistance I was enabled to publish a short grammar of Ahom (with selections and a vocabulary) in vol. lvi of the Zeitschrift der Deutschen Morgenländischen Gesellschaft. Since then I have received from him a short Ahom kōṣa, or dictionary, and also the text and translation of the cosmogony printed below.
page 184 note 1 In using the word ‘ verse’ I do not mean that the Phe-lung is in poetry. It is not. I employ the word ‘ verse’ in the sense of a short sentence.
page 198 note 1 See note to verse 9.
page 198 note 2 Phā in this cosmogony is employed in two senses. In one it means ‘ heaven,’ and corresponds to the Shan phā, 5c (compare verse 1 and elsewhere). In the other, it corresponds to the Shan phrāḥ, 4c, and is the general word for ‘ God.’ It is the Pali-Burmese 
bhu-rāḥ, a Buddha, nowadays pronounced pha-yāḥ.
page 198 note 3 Chau, ‘master, owner, king, a dēva,’ is here translated ‘ God.’ I do not know if it is a proper name or not. Compare verse 61, where it means ‘ king.’
page 199 note 1 Phrī = Shan phī, lc, a being superior to man and inferior to the Brahmās, and having its dwelling-place in one of the six inferior celestial regions. The word phrī, in Ahom, also means ‘ a ghost.’
page 199 note 2 Shang = Shan hsang, lo, a Brahmā, a being superior to men and Nats, and inhabiting the highest celestial region. In the next verse the word is used as the equivalent of Phā himself. Note that shang-bā means ‘ if.’ In verse 23 the traditional interpretation of shang bā is ‘ Shang said,’ not ‘if.’
page 199 note 3 This is apparently the traditional interpretation. Kho certainly does mean ‘ neck,’ but it also means ‘ to shine, glitter.’ I am therefore inclined to translate lak-jū-kho by ‘shine-remain-glitter,’ i.e. remain brilliant, instead of ‘shineremain neck.’
page 199 note 4 Phā-tüw-chüng is a name of Phā. Chüng means ‘ a god,’ and Chüng-phā is used in verse 49 as another name of Phā. In verses 48 and 50 Shai-chüng-müng, ‘thread-god-country,’ means ‘thread of air,’ and is the name of the air-gods identified with the Vāyus of Hinduism. I do not know the meaning of tüw in Phā-tüw-chüng. The only meanings I know of this syllable are ‘ a dwarf, ignorant, an animal.’
page 199 note 5 Khun-thiw-kham is the name of a god. The component parts seem to be khun, ‘ king’; thiw, ‘ a strong, good-looking person’; and kham, ‘ gold.’ In the 38th verse he is called a Daü, or Dēva.
page 200 note 1 I.e. Khun-thiw-kham. The word Daü is identified at the present day with the Sanskrit Dēva, God.
page 200 note 2 The word plüng means ‘half,’ but it is here and in the following verses apparently used to mean ‘ portion.’
page 200 note 3 Lā-kạ, the cosmic serpent. Like the Sēṣa of Sanskrit mythology. It does not appear whether the serpent issued from half Khun-thiw-kham or from half the crab.
page 200 note 4 Not certain whether the half was of Khun-thiw-kham or of Lā-kạ.
page 200 note 5 The name means ‘mass of white rock,’ and is nowadays identified with the Mount Mēru of Sanskrit mythology.
page 200 note 6 It does not appear who it was that was halved. Possibly Kån-phrā-phük.
page 201 note 1 Regarding the meaning of chüng, see note to verse 27. Shai-chüng-müng means ‘thread of God-country,’ i.e. ‘thread of air.’ These four are nowadays identified with the Sanskrit Vāyus. It is not certain from half of whom they were created. Possibly the threads.
page 201 note 2 Regarding Chüng-Phā, see note to verse 27. The word translated ‘ good’ is kån, which is repeated in the first syllable of Kån-Phā-ñaü. It also occurs in Kån-phrā-phük in verse 44. Ñaü means ‘great, gigantic’; compare verse 54.
page 201 note 3 Here it is certain that it is the Shai-chüng-müng that were halved.
page 201 note 4 This frequent employment of the word pün, ‘island,’ recalls the dvīpas of the Sanskrit cosmogony.
page 202 note 1 See note to verse 13.