Page:Gazetteer of the province of Oudh ... (IA cu31924073057345).pdf/463

MAN 455 men. Sichir. Bilkhác. came to Oudh some 450 years ago, and was given a subah of a great many villages. These hace been absorbed in other estates one by one, and the only village now left to the family is that of Tájpur. The Maqbara con- tains the tombs of the father and immediate relatives of Jamál Klian, and is in very good preservation under the care of a faqir, but the graves of Jamál Khan himself and his wife stand apart open and ruinous. The Pathans have a muáfi sanad for 200 bíghas in favour of "Musammat Aziz Khátún, descendant of Jamál Khan," of the date 1084 fasli (1687 A.D.). It is of the time of Aurangzeb, but the seals are illegible. Řapúr Singh of Ráepur built a fort in Tájpur, and the Patháns, though so long indepen- dent proprietors, still pay the feudal tribute of " bhent to the Bais head- At Mumtáznagar, near the remains of a gateway, the old road and the new join. Tombs and bazars still mark the line of the old thoroughfare. At Abú Sarae it passes into the cantonments of Fyzabad. Bhar forts, as they are called, are common in tlie pargana. A list is annexed of the villages in which they occur. They are Rkepur. in general simply rounded mounds, more or less lofty, Sukháwan. strewn with broken brick. The mounds appear to be Sarwári. in the main artificial, and their area is never large. Ibrábímpur Kandái. If the dwellings of the Bhars were confined to the Deora Kot. mound, the population of that day must have been Kajáparpur. very scanty. This is hardly consistent with the reve- Thareru, Kutib. nue returns of Akbar's reign for the neighbourhood, Maholi. and yet, according to the corroborative accounts of the Rajput tribes, the Bhars were dominant till Akbar's time. Impressed, however, with that idea, and finding it hard to believe, that a small population living on an exuberant soil could have lived in a state of constant strife, I conceived that the mounds were possibly constructed as a sanitary precaution against the malaria of a region of marshes and forests. The theory is scarcely justified by the position of some of the mounds with which I became acquainted; but however this may be, there can be no doubt a great change has taken place in the habits of the people since the days of the mound makers. Brick strongholds have been succeeded by clay huts, and, as in the case of Kaláparpur, the people have formed the notion that evil and misfortune haunt the dwelling- places of their forerunners. It is strange how the name of the Bhars should have adhered to places that now know them no more. It is the universal assertion of the people that the Bliars have entirely disappeared out of the land. The story of the Bhars is singular because it is so inexplicable, and interesting because so singular. Where are they? Who are they? Their works remain, but these give little light. Their mounds are not like those of Assyria, which wrap entire cities in their sheltering sand: nor even like the barrows of the Celts, where the dead were entomb- ed, equipped with the implements of the living for the happy hunting ground of the second earth. Sarjúpur is a tiny village, which was given rent-free by Shujá-ud-daula to Mund Ráro, Gosháín, Káyath of Ronahi. It is supposed to be a holy spot as the junction of the Sarju and Gogra rivers, and a fair is held there