Chakma

The Chakma, or Changhma, largest hill people of the Chittagong Hill Tracts, live around Kaptai, Ramu and the southeastern Bengal ridges, with Rakhine kin called Daingnet. They trace to Tibeto-Burman Sak groups moving from upper Myanmar to the Arakan hills from around the tenth century, then the Chittagong hills, where a Chakma raja ruled thirty-one clans.

A historical shift gave them the Indo-Aryan Chakma tongue, close to Chittagonian and written in its own Brahmi-derived script; their life rested on jhum cultivation and Theravada Buddhism.

When Mughal governor Shaista Khan took lowland Chittagong in 1666 the hill kingdom stayed free, and treaties in 1713 and 1715 recognized its internal autonomy in return for tribute. The East India Company inherited the claim in 1761, fought raja Sher Doulat Khan and his son Jan Baksh Khan from 1777 to 1787, then signed a Calcutta treaty leaving the raja to rule his hills as a tributary.