Etymology & History

Etymology

The Sanskrit name of the state is linked to the Hindu goddess of beauty; Tripura Sundari, the presiding deity of the Tripura Sundari Temple at Udaipur, one of the 51 Shakti Peethas,and to the legendary tyrant king Tripur, who reigned in the region. Tripur was the 39th descendant of Druhyu, who belonged to the lineage of Yayati, a king of the Lunar Dynasty.

There have been suggestions to the effect that the origin of the name Tripura is doubtful, raising the possibility that the Sanskritic form is just due to a folk etymology of a Tibeto-Burman name. Variants of the name include Tripra, Tuipura and Tippera. A Kokborok etymology from twi and pra has been suggested; the boundaries of Tripura extended to the Bay of Bengal when the kings of the Tripra Kingdom held sway from the Garo Hills of Meghalaya to Arakan, the present Rakhine State of Burma; so the name may reflect vicinity to the sea.

 History
Although there is no evidence of lower or middle Paleolithic settlements in Tripura, Upper Paleolithic tools made of fossil wood have been found in the Haora and Khowai valleys.The Indian epic, the Mahabharata; ancient religious texts, the Puranas; and the Edicts of Ashoka – stone pillar inscriptions of the emperor Ashoka dating from the third century BCE – all mention Tripura.

An ancient name of Tripura is Kirat Desh, probably referring to the Kirata Kingdoms or the more generic term  Kirata.However, it is unclear whether the extent of modern Tripura is coterminous with Kirat Desh.The region was under the rule of the Twipra Kingdom for centuries, although when this dates from is not documented.

The Rajmala, a chronicle of Tripuri kings which was first written in the 15th century,provides a list of 179 kings, from antiquity up to Krishna Kishore Manikya, but the reliability of the Rajmala has been doubted.

The boundaries of the kingdom changed over the centuries. At various times, the borders reached south to the jungles of the Sundarbans on the Bay of Bengal; east to Burma; and north to the boundary of the Kamarupa kingdom in Assam.

There were several Muslim invasions of the region from the 13th century onward,which culminated in Mughal dominance of the plains of the kingdom in 1733,although their rule never extended to the hill regions.The Mughals had influence over the appointment of the Tripuri kings.

Tripura became a princely state during British rule in India. The kings had an estate in British India, known as Tippera district or Chakla Roshnabad now the Comilla district of Bangladesh,in addition to the independent area known as Hill Tippera, the present-day state.

Udaipur, in the south of Tripura, was the capital of the kingdom, until the king Krishna Manikya moved the capital to Old Agartala in the 18th century. It was moved to the new city of Agartala in the 19th century.

Bir Chandra Manikya modelled his administration on the pattern of British India, and enacted
reforms including the formation of Agartala Municipal Corporation.In 1926,it became a part of Pakokku Hill Tracts Districts of British Burma until 1948,January 4.

Following the independence of India in 1947, Tippera district – the estate in the plains of British India – became a part of East Pakistan, and Hill Tippera remained under a regency council until 1949. The Maharani Regent of Tripura signed the Tripura Merger Agreement on 9 September 1949, as a result of which Tripura became a Part C state of India.It became a Union Territory, without a legislature, in November 1956 and an elected ministry was installed in July 1963.

The geographic partition that coincided with the independence of India resulted in major economic and infrastructural setbacks for the state, as road transport between the state and the major cities of India had to follow a more circuitous route.

The road distance between Kolkata and Agartala before the partition was less than 350 km, and increased to 1,700 km, as the route now avoided East Pakistan.The geo-political isolation was aggravated by an absence of rail transport.

Parts of the state were shelled by the Pakistan Army during the Indo-Pakistani War of 1971. Following the war, the Indian government reorganised the North East region to ensure effective control of the international borders – three new states came into existence on 21 January 1972 Meghalaya, Manipur, and Tripura.

Since the partition of India, many Hindu Bengalis have migrated to Tripura as refugees from East Pakistan;settlement by Hindu Bengalis increased at the time of the
Bangladesh Liberation War of 1971.

Hindu Bengalis migrated to Tripura after 1949 to escape religious persecution in Muslim majority East Pakistan. Before independence, most of the population was indigenous;.Ethnic strife between the Tripuri tribe and the predominantly immigrant Bengali community led to scattered violence, and an insurgency spanning decades.

This gradually abated following the establishment of a tribal autonomous district council and the use of strategic counter-insurgency operations.Tripura remains peaceful, as of 2016.