Our Legacy

The group can be introduced, from the house of (Late) Hem Chandra Baruah, the prominent writer, and social reformer who compiled the first etymological Assamese dictionary from Sanskrit – Hemkosh, published in 1919.

During the British period, the regional languages faced an immense identity crisis as these languages were used with wrong pronunciation and in a grammatically incorrect manner. At that time Hem Chandra Baruah published ‘Porhaholio Abhidhan’, Hemkosh and Asomiya Bhakhar Biyakoron, to strengthen and give a definite direction to the Assamese language.

Hemkosh was first published in the early 20th century under the supervision of Capt. P. R. Gordon, ISC and Hemchandra Goswami. It contained about 22,346 words. This dictionary still published by Hemkosh Printers is considered to be the “standard” reference of the Assamese orthography.

On the occasion of the 188^th birth anniversary of ‘Bhaxar Oja’ Late Hemchandra Baruah, the 15th Revised Edition of Hemkosh was officially unveiled on 1oth December 2023 at Vivekananda Kendra in Guwahati’s Uzanbazar. This latest edition of Hemkosh is over 1200 pages and contains over 1 lakh words.