Abstract
Frans Jansz van der Heiden (1638–81), a Dutch East India Company sailor, accompanied the expedition of Mir Jumla to Assam (1662–63) during the reign of sixth Mughal emperor Aurangzeb (1658–1707) and Süa-taam-laa (1648–63), king of the Ahom kingdom in Assam. Heiden was the eyewitness of the war, history, topography and culture of then Assam. Many historians mentioned that it was W. Glanius who came along with Mir Jumla. But by evidence, W. Glanius was the English translator of the travel account authored by Heiden who was actually a conscripted sailor and accompanied Mir Jumla’s expedition to Assam. Heiden visited Northeast India, such as, Bengal, Assam and the adjacent areas. It was a sensational narrative of his journey, filled with hallucination, shipwreck, experience in a desert island, hunger, cannibalism, bad luck, warfare of the Mughal army and Ahom, culture, customs, society, religion, knowledge of a new land and people. In his travelogue, we found much information on gold, elephants, the nature of Assamese people, beliefs in cows, the capital (Gargaon) of the Ahom kingdom, a tribe as a man-eater, plundering of grave (maidam), tradition of burial system of Ahom kings and nobles and so on.