The Ahom religion, also known as Phuralung religion, is the ethnic religion of the Ahom people of Assam, India. According to the conventional chronology, the Ahoms entered Assam in 1228 under the leadership of the Tai prince Sukaphaa and subsequently assimilated with local populations. This dating, however, has been questioned by Daniels (2023), who argues that the available Tai and Chinese sources may instead indicate that the Ahom polity was founded in the fourteenth century. The people who came into Assam included two clans of priests, joined later by a third, who brought with them their own religion, rituals, practices and scriptures. The Ahom religion is based on ritual-oriented ancestor worship"The Tai Ahom religion is explained and interpreted by the scholars differently; yet the ancient religion of the Tai Ahoms, is in essence, the religion of ancestor worship. It is a ritual oriented religion and the rituals are primarily based on the cult of ancestor worship." that requires animal sacrifice (Ban-Phi),"Ban Phi' is the sacrificial process to offer oblations to the gods and ancestors." though there is at least one Buddhism-influenced ritual in which sacrifice is forbidden (Phuralung)."Although blood sacrifice is a must in the Tai Ahom rituals, yet the 'Phuralung' ceremony needs no shed of blood of any bird and animal." Ancestor worship and the animistic concept of khwan are two elements it shares with other Tai folk religions.Tai Ahom religion is entirely based on the very cult of ancestor worship and Khon (Khwan) belief and these two are the common elements present in all the Tais spreading over the world. There is no idolatry except for the titular god of the Ahom king"There is no image worship or Idolatry in the Tai Ahom religion except for Chumpha rung sheng mung, commonly known as Chum Pha." and though there is a concept of heaven or a heavenly kingdom (Mong Phi, sometimes identified with Tian),"Heaven is here Tien a part Yunnan In Southwest China." there is no concept of hell."The concept of 'The Heavenly Kingdom' or 'Mong Phi' is there in the Tai Ahom religion. But there is no concept of hell in this religion" It was the state religion of the Ahom kingdom in the initial period.
The Ahom kingdom expanded suddenly in the 16th century, and the Ahom peoples became a small minority in their own kingdom—though they continued to wield control. Subsequently, they slowly converted and by the early 19th-century, Ahom religion declined to be replaced by Shaktism. In the 1931 survey, all Ahoms listed Hinduism as their religion."The 1931 Census report of Assam recorded 249,434 Ahoms in Assam spread over in various districts and they all were returned as Hindus." Nevertheless, due to the Ahom revivalism movement as well as efforts from scholars, many of the older practices of the Ahom religion have been resurrected since the 1960s and 1970s. The three priestly clans (Mo'sam, Mo'hung, Mo'Plong) of the Ahom people are the current custodians of the Ahom religion.
Etymology In the Tai-Ahom language, Am-Su-Shin refers to a religion or a doctrine. Phuralung is a combination of two Tai-Ahom words, Phura, meaning ‘the unified force of the world’, and Lung, meaning ‘Dragon’. In 1975, the priestly class formed the Assam Phuralung Society, and designated the Ahom religion Am-Su-Shin Phuralung, or the Phuralung Religion.
Modern revival and debates over continuity By the twentieth century, most Ahoms followed different forms of Hinduism, while knowledge of the earlier Ahom ritual tradition survived only fragmentarily among some priestly families. A religious revival developed alongside Tai-Ahom cultural and political organisations from the 1960s onward. Historians and anthropologists have consequently debated the extent to which the revived religion represents an uninterrupted continuation of the practices of the Ahom kingdom.
Anthropologist B. J. Terwiel initially interpreted ceremonies that he observed in 1979 and 1980 as rare survivals of a pre-Buddhist Tai religion, but subsequently revised his assessment. He found that contemporary priests could decipher the Ahom script and pronounce its words but generally lacked sufficient command of the language to interpret the texts without dictionaries. Terwiel argued that many modern prayers had been composed through dictionary-based reconstruction in a non-idiomatic form that he termed "pseudo-Ahom". He further concluded that the modern forms of the Chaklong marriage ceremony, the Lengdon and Ja Sing Phra ceremonies, and public rituals such as Me-Dam-Me-Phi and Um Pha were largely reconstructed during the 1960s and 1970s, and the historical continuity of these practices could not be demonstrated.
Yasmin Saikia describes Phra Lung as a modern religious formation created by an organisation founded in Sivasagar in 1967. According to her account, it combined elements of Mahayana Buddhism, Tantric practices and ancestor worship, while also introducing new dietary and conversion practices. During fieldwork in the 1990s, Saikia found that its principles and ceremonies had not been fully standardised: conversion was conducted in Assamese, household observances differed, and the Dam Pata ancestral ceremony had no fixed ritual text and was, in her assessment, a new creation. She also dates the development of Me-Dam-Me-Phi into a mass annual public observance to 1991 and connects its expansion with contemporary Tai-Ahom identity politics and political patronage.
Terwiel nevertheless cautions that this process should not be understood simply as deliberate fraud. Revivalist priests consulted surviving manuscripts for ritual terminology, offerings and procedures and regarded themselves as custodians restoring an ancestral tradition, even where gaps in transmission had to be filled through modern reconstruction. He therefore distinguishes between older elements preserved in manuscripts or priestly practice and the arrangement, language and public performance of many modern ceremonies.
Contested innovations and dietary practices According to Saikia (2004), the organisers of the modern-day Phra Lung introduced dietary prescriptions that included the consumption of beef and lau pani (rice beer). These prescriptions were disputed among Ahoms themselves, particularly among communities that continued to follow Ekasarana Vaishnavism and rejected meat and alcohol.
Saikia also records that some mass conversions included a ceremony called Hu-pat, translated as "to kill a cow". She identifies Nagen Hazarika as instrumental in initiating the ceremony but states that its origins were uncertain. By the 1990s, it had become a symbolic boundary used by some revivalists to distinguish "real Tai-Ahoms" from Hindus who claimed an Ahom identity. The ceremony was therefore a contested feature of the modern identity movement rather than a demonstrably ancient or universally accepted Ahom rite. The modern Hu-pat ceremony should not be confused with every historical instance of bovine sacrifice. Earlier court traditions included animal sacrifice independently of the twentieth-century revival; for example, Saikia's analysis of the Satsari Assam Buranji records that the earlier installation sacrifice was replaced by the sacrifice of a white bull at the enthronement of Rudra Singha.
Ancestor worship
Ancestor worship is a core tenet of Ahom religion. Ancestor worship ceremonies are divided into two main types: Dam-Phi, performed in individuals households, and Me-Dam-Me-Phi, a public socio-religious ceremony. In the Ahom religion, after one dies, they are believed to become a Dam (lit. 'spirit of the dead'). Dam are held in awe, worshiped and propitiated for protection."When his descendants propitiate him with the offerings he comes down to earth and partakes the offerings and keeps an eye upon them as their guardian spirit." After the fourteenth generation, a Dam becomes a Phi (god) and is worshiped by the whole community."A person becomes a Dam after his death, and he gets oblation as a household Dam, when he becomes Phi after crossing the fourteenth generation counting from the living household then he remained no longer a Dam but he is considered to be a god and in no way concerned with the particular family and becomes a national spirit or ancestor god to the whole community." There are three stages of Dam, based on the generation (with the highest living generation numbered one) and the circumstances of death, and they progress from one stage to the next.
Griha Dam The head of the household and his wife, or the parents, are called the Na Dam ("new Dam", 2nd generation), the next highest generation the Ghai Dam ("main Dam", 3rd generation) and the next higher generation the Chi Rwan Dam (4th generation). Each Dam is complete only when both the husband and wife are dead. These three Dams constitute the Griha Dam (household Dam) and they are believed to reside in the North-east pillar of the kitchen, Pho Kam (Assamese: Dam Khuta), which is usually raised first during the construction of the house and is considered most sacred place in the entire house. The Dam Phi rituals are directed at the Pho Kam. The household deity, Seng Ka Pha, is also worshiped at the Pho Kam. Those who die unnaturally, without children or unmarried are called Jokorua Dam and are not included in the Griha Dam and treated and worshiped differently.
Chang Dam The next nine generations of Dams (5th to 13th) constitute Chang Dam, the Dams who have been let out of the house into the threshold;"(Chi ren Dam) are upgraded to the threshold or jakhala to heaven and are then lifted to Chang Phi Dam." and are worshiped according to special rites, called No Puruxor Saul Khua (feast for nine generations).
Chao Phi Dam This is the final stage for Dams and in this stage, the Dams (14th and above) are considered to have become gods (Phi) and merged with original forefathers of the entire community collectively called Chao Phi Dam. In this class of Dams the two evil deities, Ra Khin and Ba Khin too belong, but they are worshiped with lower status and separately."Along with the gods and the Chao Phi Dam, another two evil deities are worshipped namely, ‘Ra-Khiri and ‘Ba-Khiri. Yet they are not given the same status and veneration with the eight gods and Chao Phi Dam. They are worshipped by making a platform on earth far away from the main ground of ritual. A slightly thick wall is made to separate them from the main ritual ground." The Jokorua Dams in the fourteenth generation become Khin and join these two deities.
Gods and cosmogony Creation of gods It is mentioned in the Ahom scripture, Lit Lai Peyn Kaka, that at first there was nothing but the water of the ocean. Pha Tu Ching — the omnipotent and formless supreme deity — opened his eyes to the void and created from his breast the first deity — Khun Theu Kham. Freshly created, and finding nothing to lean on, Khun Theu Kham dove into the water and then laid on his back, and a lotus plant issued from his navel. This was followed by the creation of a crab, a tortoise, and an eight-hooded snake that encircled the tortoise. The eight hoods spread in eight directions. Then were created a white elephant with long tusks, and two mountains in the north and south, on which pillars were placed. Then a pair of gold-tinted spiders were created that floated in the air and dropped excrement, from which earth came about. The spiders then placed eight pillars in the eight corners of the wall, and spun their web to create heaven. Heaven in Ahom religion denotes Tien, a part of Yunnan in Southwest China known as Mong Phi.
Pha Tu Ching also created a consort for Khun Theu Kham, and they gave birth to the Lon Kām (four golden eggs). Pha Tu Chin then created a Thaolung to warm the eggs—but the eggs would not hatch for many years. So he sprinkled ambrosia (Nya Pulok) on them and four gods emerged: (1) Pha-Sang-Din-kham-Neyeu (2) Seng-Cha-Cha-Kham (3) Seng-Kam-Pha