AME
55
the
site, occupied or unoccupied, of a former village of Amethi ; but unless present speculation be correct, I have searched for this in vain. I know of no grounds whatever for concluding that the Amethi of the maps marks the spot where the old village was it simply denotes the headquarters of a tahsil. Again, the pargana is properly speaking not Amethi but Garh Amethi,* and this points either to its containing two previously separate divisions of that kind, or to a similar conjunction of two of its In this instance, the latter seems the more probable constituent villages. as there is never known to have been a distinct pargana of Garh Amethi. village of the name on the other hand is readily found and that it is the particular one wanted is rendered likely by the fact that it contains "an old Bhar fort in a commanding position overlooking a lake," while the existence of a brick fort in Garh Amethi is expressly mentioned by Abul The eponymous village still remains to be discovered and in its Fazl-f-. absence Bihta appears to be the most promising field of search firstly, because Amethi being coupled with Garh was presumably contiguous to it, or at least in its vicinity, and Bihta, though it does not now adjoin Garh, is within a very short distance of it, and, so far as known, the intervening villages are of comparatively recent creation secondly, because Bihta can boast of an extreme antiquity; and thirdly, because it is known to have been a place of some importance and the head-quarters of a That Bihta itself is identical with the missing village need only tappa. be doubted in consequence of the absence of nominal identity.
my
A
This brings one round again to the question whether that identity did not once exist. What leads me to suggest this is that there are unmistakeable signs of both names having deviated from earlier known forms Bihta alone is now the name of the village, as that 9f a tappa, it is also recorded Bishta. There is the high authority of the Ain-i-Akbari, on the other hand, for reading Ain Bahti for Amethif. Thus we have Bihta, Ainbahti, which differ from each other only to an extent that may be explained by the hypothesis that, in the former an elision of the initial short syllable has taken place— a process by no means unprecedented^:. Again, if in the one case sh has become a simple li, the same may very And if these changes be made, the possibly have happened in the other. names of villao-e and pargana become respectively Ambishta and Ambihta.
deduction from these arguments is, that Bihta is neither more Amethi, the parent village of the pargana the second is, than J no Bihta were originally Ambashtas, one that the pretended Bandhalgotis of Manu's code. in enumerated classes of the mixed
The
first
'
—The proximity of two clans of Chhattris bearing the same name one of the other, the goyeming and landowning clan, denies identity of origin is and which every district m Oudh. In Kheri the present itself Tn antiquarian problem which presents deny any connection with the others Imng T^nwlrs of the feudal house of Oel Kaimahra, R^mpur Dhingwas in Paitabgarh ignore their low y brethren, the ,?rrl them so the Bisens of rTfnstrceofallSthatofthe Tilok Chaudi Bais who deny boldly that they are of the PnTTOR's Note asserts,
m
Banian which spreads over all O.idh, see ^#Tti» palled so in the Aln-i-Akbari, and also
^reat
+ Compare
also the loss of the 5 in the
artkle Rai Bareli.
m
documents of comparatively recent date. word Bamitha, which is correctly Bambhi (Elliot's
^T ComparTth^^commo^ E^^Ush Vord
press-gang,
which
is
an abbreviation of impress
