Page:Gazetteer of the province of Oudh ... (IA cu31924073057345).pdf/266

258 KHE day After eighteen generations Rája Kalián Sáb is mentioned. He had two sons, Narsinghdeo and Janni Bhán. They quarrelled and divided the estate, the former keeping pargana Nímkhár and residing at Mitauli, the latter retiring to Kotwára, two miles south of Gola, close to Bhurwára, the old residence of his ancestors, and exercising authority over Bhúrwára.. Múl Sáh was the son by a second wife of Khan Jahán, fifth in descent. from Jamni Bháit. He was converted to Muhammadanism, and his des- cendants, it is alleged, acquired and retained possession of the whole par- gana of Bhúrwára containing 989 villages. Kala Pahar, nephew of Balilol Lodi, was the missionary of Islám to whose persuasions Múl Sáh. succumbed: in A.D. 1488. Khan Jahan bad an elder son by his first wife. He was ousted as above related; but thirteen generations afterwards his des- cendants, Kesri Singh and others, were allowed to take leases of the Báosi. and other estates which they still hold in pargana Bhúr (Aliganj). Some dubious or contradictory points must now be cleared up. Accord- ing to the above account then, when Akbar ascended the throne of Delhi, there were four families of Ahbans holding estates that descended from Gopi in Gopamau ; second, the offspring of Kunwar Sáh, holding Kunwar Danda in Machhrehta ; third, the main branch of the family, tracing from Narsinghdeo and lords of pargana Nimkhár, containing the six muháls of Sikandarabad, Maholi, Kasta Abgáon, Nímkhár, Misrikh ; 'fourth, the Muhammadan branch residing at Kotwara and holding Aliganj, Haidarabad, Kukra Mailáni. The second may be dismissed with a short notice. Rája Kesri Singh in the early part of Akbar's reign in a fit of passion killed his diwán and was deprived of his estate, when the murdered man's sons appealed to the emperor. As for the third its present representatives pro- duce sanads from Akbar, Shah Jahản, Jahangir, reciting that they were the zamindars and rájas of three parganas, Gopamau, Nímkhár, and Bhúrwára. These sanads, however, are almost certainly forgeries; the pre- sent members of the family admit that Bhúrwára was never their property since the separation and conversion to the Musalman faith of the younger branch. Now this conversion was certainly effected long before Akbar's time. Not only do tradition and history combine to affirm that Kala Pahár converted these Ahbans seventy years before Akbar's time; but the number of gene- rations, seventeen, which have passed away since the change of religion and name, prove that the first convert must have lived in Bahlol Lodi's time or before it. Seventeen generations, allowing twenty-two years to each, will cover 374 years, and that period would carry us back to 1498, only ten years later than the recorded date of the conversion. Further, there were two great chiefs among the Albans. The Mitauli rája when pressed by the Pásis of Maholi (see history of that pargana), who wanted his daughter in marriage applied for aid to his relation, the Abban lord of Pataunja, and the two combined murdered the Pásis when drunk after a feast. Gopaman was held also by the Shekh Chaudhris from Humáyun's time. Therefore the Mitauli rája could not have been actually the master of these parganas; and if he fraudulently obtained a deed recoguizing his mere leadship over the clans, why was not Machhrehta entered, at any rate in the first, as it belonged also to the Ahbans. Fur-