have been repeatedly redrawn, though the name Assam remained. Today, the political boundary of Assam contains roughly the historical Ahom Kingdom and its protectorates, the Kachari kingdom, Koch Hajo and a part of the Jaintia Kingdom. Modern name Assam According to , the English word Assamese parallels other demonyms (Chinese, Sinhalese, Nepalese, etc.), building on Assam, an Anglicization of the Bengali word Asam that itself refers to the Brahmaputra Valley. Other writers (most notably Banikanta Kakati and S N Sarma) have repeated this claim. has mentioned that the British used Asam before finally settling on Assam; though Grierson claims that the form Assam is English, The Assam Tribune has reported the finding of a Dutch map drawn around 1661 with a label Assam. Theories on etymology The precise etymology of the name Assam or Asam () is not known, though many explanations have been put forward. Among the different theories, two attribute the name to the terrain of the region while three attribute it to the Shan invaders of the 13th century. Ha-com: from Bodo One of the earliest theories published was provided by Baden-Powell in 1896, when he proposed that the name could possibly derive from the Bodo Ha-com, meaning "low or level country". He rejected the possibility that the name Assam (Asam) could be derived from Aham (Ahom). Subsequent writers like P. C. Choudhury and R N Mosahary lend credence to this theory. So, if Ha-Com is the source of Sanskrit Asama, then it traces its origin from very early times, long before any Ahom invasion. Asama: from Sanskrit Two different meanings of the Sanskrit word Asama have been used to explain the name: one meaning "uneven" (terrain) and the other "unequaled". reports that according to some people, the name "Assam" is derived from the Sanskrit asama, meaning "uneven" which describes the terrain of the region in contrast to the flat plains of Samatata, though he rejects this explanation on the grounds that the word was never used before the advent of the Ahoms and that the Vamshavali of the Darrang kings used it to refer to the Ahom community and not to the land. The second theory Gait reported is that Asama, meaning "unequal" or "peerless", was a name the local people gave the undefeated Ahoms, according to a tradition that the Ahoms themselves believed in. Gait rejects this notion as well, noting that the local tribal