Page:Gazetteer of the province of Oudh ... (IA cu31924073057345).pdf/250

242 KHE primeval forests of Pilibhit. When hard pressed they escaped to the jun- gle, which still skirts their ancient possessions of Garh Gajana and Garha Khera. But their resistance was not always successful, as their descend- ants confess that about 300 or 400 years ago, when their capital Nigohi was taken by the king of Delhi, the twelve sons of Rája Udarana, or Aorana, were all put to death. The twelve cenotaphs of these princes are still shown at Nigohi. Shortly after this catastrophe Chhavi Rand, the grandson of one of the murdered princes, fled to the Lalchi jungle, where he supported himself by plundering; but when orders were given to exter- minate bis band, he presented himself before the king of Delhi and obtained the district of Nigohi as a Jágtr. This place his descendant Tarsan Singh still holds, but the Jágír is reduced to the town of Nigohi with a few of the surrounding villages. “The Gotracharya of the Bachhil Rajputs declares them to be Chan- dravansis , and their high social position is attested by their daughters being taken in mar by Chat nis, Ráthors, and Kachhwáhag. Accord- ing to Sir H. Elliot, Bichhil zamindars are found in the districts of Aligarh and Mathura, as well as in Budaon and Shahjahánpur of Robil- kband. But the race is even more widely spread than the Gangetic Bachhils are aware of, as Abul Fazl records that the part of Aramraj (in the Peninsula of Gujarát) is a very strong place inhabited by the tribe of Báchhil.' Of the origin of the name nothing is known, but it is probably connected with bachhna, to select or choose. The title of Chhindu, which is given in the inscription, is also utterly unknown to the people, and I can only guess that it may be the name of one of the early ancestors of the race." The history of the Bachhils is a comparative blank till the seventeenth century. We can only conjecture that they reigned at Nigohi over the country now included in parganas Muhamdi, Paggawan, Atwa Piparia, Bhúr in Oudh, with Barágáon and Shahjahanpur in that district of the North-Western Provinces. On the east they had for neighbours the Abbans who will be afterwards referred to; on the west the Katehriyas whose capital in this neighbourhood was Pawáin. No Musalmans had as yet made any permanent settlements in the place; all their establishments are of later foundation. Tughlaq Shah had passed through on his way to Khairigarh in 1379. Firoz Shah laid waste the whole country to revenge the massacre of the Governor of Budaun by the Katehriyas, and it was doubtless on this occa- sion that Nigohi was captured. They still relate themselves the fearful effects of the emperor's raid when 365 of their forts were levelled, and as the Musalman historians state that 23,000 of the inhabitants were carried into slavery, the fact is not improbable. The country became a wilder- ness over which the Bachhils, now barbarous moss-troopers, exercised a precarious sovereignty. Bilgrám in Hardoi was probably the nearest town boasting any appearance of civilization. The sites of Shahabad, Muhamdi, Aurangabad were then covered with forest. In 1556 the Sayyads of Barwar obtained the grant of the latter place, so called from being hid in the forest. Another indication of the wild nature of the country is