Page:Gazetteer of the province of Oudh ... (IA cu31924024153987).pdf/334

This page needs to be proofread.

BAR

256

under Imdm Joth Khan and Mustafa Khan, they drove out Bais Chhattris from Barauli, Brahmans and Bhars from Mawai. Rudauli was occupied about H. 700, in the -reign of Alla-ud-din Khilji, whose forces had just about the same time destroyed Anhalwara, Chittor, Deogir, Mandor, Jessulmere, Gagraun, Bundi, in fact nearly every remaining seat of Chhattri power. Easiflpur was conquered about 1350 A.D. 756 H. Daryabad was founded about 850, H. 1444 A. D., by Dari^o Khan Subahdar. Fatehpur was colonized by Fateh Khan, a brother of Darido Khan, and about the same time.

The villages of Barauli and Barai, near Rudauli, were occupied, and gave name to large estates about the middle of the fifteenth century.

their

Simultaneously, however, with this latter immigration of the Musalmans there was one of Chhattris. The mysterious tribe of Kalhans, which numbers some twenty thousand persons, are said to be descended from Achal Sing, who came in as a soldier of fortune with Dariao Khan about 1450 A. D.

time Ibrahim Shah, Sharqi, reigned at Jaunpur. Oudh was the ground ^the border land between that dynasty and the Lodis of Delhi and their princes, as the tide of conquest surged backwards and the war being now one forwards, settled Hindu soldiers as garrisons, between Moslems, and no longer one of religion. The Kalhans are said to have come from Gujarat, the same nursery of Chhattris from which the Ahban, the Panwar, the Gahlot, the Gaur, the Bais, and many other Oudh clans, are believed to have emigrated.

At

this

battle

This Achal Singh is declared to have been of an Angrez bans or stock, and there is no doubt that on the borders of Gujarat and Baluchistan many foreigners who had arrived both by land and sea voyages did settle down and gradually blend with the Hindu race, assuming suitable places in the A migration further east, far from all local traditions of caste system. original impurity, would in time render their origin one of unquestioned orthodoxy in popular repute, just as Indo-Scythians,* and even Portuguese are said to have blended with Western Rajputs. At any rate, this Rdja Achal Singh is a great name in the middle ages of Oudh he had large property some state that his capital was Bade Sarai, on the old bank of the Gogra and the story that he was overwhelmed with nearly aU his houses by an irruption of the Gogra -f- because he had perjured himself to his wife's family priest, is a favourite tradition of Oudh. He had, it is

now his descendants have great taluqas, mostly situated in Gonda, Kamiar, Paska, Shahpur, Dhanfiwan, Pardspur Ata they hold on both sides of the Gogra, just as the Raikwars do to the north, and the J^ngres beyond them again in Kheri and Bahraich. Similarly, the isolated Sdrajbansi estate of Hard,ha and the Sombansi Bahrelia estate of Surajpur were establised by small colonies of Chhattri soldiers, who had been dismissed from service about eighteen generations ago. These S^rajbans assert an emigration from Bansi in Gorakhpur and a connexion with the Sirneyts the Chauh^ns of stated, only a grant of eight villages originally;

six

  • Wilson's Vishnu Parana, Hall's Edition, Vol.

+ Camel's Caster of Oudh, p. 47.

II. p. 134.