<p>The Kālikāpurāṇa is a Śākta Upapurāṇa closely tied to Kamarupa, a region often regarded as the earliest kingdom of Assam. This text is an important source for reconstructing the history of the early Brahmaputra Valley. Like many other parts of India, modern history writing in Assam began during the colonial period as part of the British administration’s attempts to understand and govern the region. In the late eighteenth century, portions of the Kālikāpurāṇa were translated and published by British civilian W. C. Blaquiere, whose focus on the text’s “sanguinary” chapter reflected the prevalent colonial notion that early Sanskrit literature lacked historical value. This perspective resonates with the dismissive approach taken by E. A. Gait in A History of Assam (1905). However, with the rise of nationalist sentiment in the early twentieth century, historians began to reinterpret the Kālikāpurāṇa as a legitimate historical source, highlighting Assam’s ancient legacy and connecting it to mainstream Indian culture. This paper critically examines how the Kālikāpurāṇa was used and represented in colonial and nationalist historiography and in postcolonial discourse, assessing the shift from dismissal to acceptance and analyzing the broader implications for writing Assam’s early history.</p>