[5] The mature structure was designed by Momai Tamuli Borbarua in 1608, and extensively and exhaustively implemented by 1658 during the reign of Sutamla Jayadhwaj Singha.
[7] The Paik system has had a profound impact on Assam's social life, with many collective practices originating in the medieval times.
Many people in Assam today still carry the Paik offices titles in their last names—Bora, Saikia and Hazarika.
In the jungle estates, zamindars employed members of the Chuar community as village police, known as paiks.
Although the Chuars worked the paikan lands, there was no strong sense of unity between them and the non-Chuar peasants.
[8] Every male in the Ahom kingdom between the ages of fifteen and fifty who was not a noble, a priest, a high caste or a slave was a paik.
The duty of a paik was to render service to the Ahom state in exchange for which he was granted 2 puras (2.66 acres) of usufruct cultivable land (gaa mati), which was neither hereditary nor transferable.
The royal services that the paiks tended to were defense (the Ahom kingdom did not have a standing army till the beginning of 19th century and its army consisted of the militia formed of paiks), civil construction (embankments, roads, bridges, tanks, etc.
[12] After the first major survey recorded in the Buranjis which was taken in 1510 under Suhungmung, the paiks were organized according to families and lineage called phoids and resettled according to their skills.
This ensured that economic production did not suffer when a large section of the population was not involved in it and contributed to the resilience of the Ahom kingdom in the 16th to 18th century.
A second group of divisions was placed under the khel officers (Phukan, Rajkhowa and Barua) that rendered service to members of the royal family.
The third and the largest group of dagis, organized under khel officers, rendered service to the king or the state.
The Phukans, Rajkhowas, Baruas and Hazarikas were nominated by the king and appointed in concurrence with the three great Gohains (Burhagohain, Borgohain and Borpatrogohain).
By the 17th century it had evolved into a robust system that gave the Ahom kingdom a resilience in the face of a long protracted war against the Mughals.
This gave rise to the apaikan chamua a class of paiks who were released from their khels and who paid a cash tax in lieu of the service to the king.