As per the death bed injunction of
Rudra Singha, he was succeeded by his eldest son. Siva Singha ascended the throne on the 20th day of Magh, and assumed the
Ahom name Sutanphaa and the Hindu name of Siva Singha. He gave up Rudra Singha's plan to organize a confederacy of the
rajas of Hindustan and to invade
Bengal (
Mughal Empire), but obeyed his father's injunction to become a disciple of Krishnaram Bhattacharjya (Nyayavagish), the
Shakta priest from nearby
Nabadwip in present-day
West Bengal. He gave the management of the
Kamakhya Temple to Krishnaram, who came to be known as Parbatiya Gosain, as his residence was on top of the Nilachal hill. Siva Singha accepted him as the royal priest and made a large number of land grants to temples and Brahmin priests. Siva Singha is said to have established such an elaborate system of
espionage during his reign that he had accurate information of everything that was done or spoken in the kingdom.
Dafla expedition There was no war in his reign, except in January 1717 there was an expedition against the
Daflas of the northern hills, who had again taken to raiding the plains people. After they had been reduced to submission, an embankment was constructed along the foot of the hills inhabited by them as protection against future raids.
Bar Rajas in Persian script. The legends read:
obverse: Shivsingh shwah chickah jad chu mahar vaham begum pramatheswari shwah; sipithi (mudran gadgaon ১৫ basar, tarikh ১৬৫১) Siba Singha was a staunch
Shakta and was greatly influenced by the Brahmin priests and astrologers. In 1722, his spiritual guides and astrologers predicted that his rule would shortly come to end in near future, due to the consequences of
chatra-bhanga-yoga. That he not only made many lavish presents to various temples and the Brahmins, in hope of conciliating the gods and averting the calamity but also endeavor to satisfy the alleged decree of fate by a subterfuge that greatly diminished his prestige in the eyes of his people. Therefore at the suggestion of Parvatiya Gosain, consented to endow his chief queen
Phuleshwari, a Nat by caste, with the supreme vest, who assumed the name
Pramatheswari and the title of Bar Raja. Queen Phuleswari minted coins in the joint name of her and her husband where she used
Persian legend, the first of its kind in Assam. Phuleswari was more under the influence of the Brahmins, particularly the Parvatiya Gosain than the king. It is believed that this was instigated by Gosain and in her zeal for Sakta Hinduism, she attempted to make
Shaktism the State religion. With this objective, she ordered the
Vaishnava Gosains to worship the goddess Durga. She then forbade the worship of other deities and personally supervised the act of desecration of the Sonarijan camp. Learning that the Sudra Mahantas were strong Vaishnavites and opposed animal sacrifice, she held a
Durga puja in the capital Rangpur and forced
Moamoria and several other Gosains to offer oblations to the goddess and smeared sacrificial blood on their foreheads. The Moamarias never forgave this insult to their spiritual leader and it became one of the prime reasons that they broke out in an open rebellion about half a century later, which came to be known as the
Moamoria rebellion.
Phuleshwari in 1731 died while giving birth. The king then married her sister Draupadi, and made her the Bar Raja, after which she assumed the name of
Ambika.
Ambika had constructed the famous
Sivasagar Siva doul, at her patronage, the famous manuscript on elephantry
Hastividyarnava was composed. She died in 1738. Then Siva Singha then married Endari or Akari-Gabharu, whom he made the Bar Raja, with the name of
Sarbeswari. The two successors of
Phuleshwari, Ambika and Sarbeswri wielded the same authority and power as her, but were however not as energetic as their predecessor in patronizing
Saktism. ==Religious proclivities==