Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 3.djvu/689

Rh River. The Mahdnadi is the principal river of the district, and governs the whole drainage and river system of the surrounding country. It takes its rise in a mountain ous region which is described as the wildest of all wild parts of the Central Provinces, crosses the Bildspur boundary Dear Seorindrdin, and after a course of 25 miles in the south-eastern extremity of the district enters Sambalpur district. Within Bilaspur the river is everywhere navigable for six months in the year. Minor rivers the Sakri, Hamp, Tesud, Agar, Maniari, Arpa, Kharod, Lildgar, Jonk, and Bareri. The most important affluents of the Mahdnadi are the Seonath and Hasdu. Besides the natural water supply afforded by the rivers, Bilaspur abounds in tanks, these numbering 7018, as shown in the settlement statistics. The census of 1872 disclosed a total population of 715,398, of whom 435,379, or 60 86 per cent., are Hindus ; 7024, or 98 per cent., Mahometans ; 6 Buddhists ; 37 Christians ; and 272,952, or 38-15 per cent., belong to aboriginal tribes, such as Gonds, Kan wars, Bhumias, Binjwars, Dhanwdrs, &c. Among the Hindus, the Chdindrs and Paukds deserve particular notice. The former, who form the shoemaker and leather-dealing caste of the Hindu community, had always been held in utter contempt by the other Hindu castes. But between 1820 and 1830 a religious movement, having for its object their freedom from the trammels of caste, was inaugurated by a member of the caste, named Ghdsi Das, who preached the unity of God and the equality of men. Ghasi Das gave himself out as a messenger of God ; he prohibited the adoration of idols, and enjoined the worship of the Supreme Being without any visible sign or representation. The followers of the new faith call themselves Satndmis, or the worshippers of Satndm or God. They do not keep the Hindu festivals, and they defy the contempt of the Brdhmans. Ghasi Das, the founder of the faith, was their first high priest. He died in 1850; his son succeeded him, but was assassinated (it was said by the Hindus), and the grandson is the present high priest. The Charnars in Bilaspur number 164,388, or 21 per cent, of the total population. The Paukds, who form about a sixth of the population, are all Kabirpanthls, or followers of Kabir, a religious reformer of the 15th century. There is no great difference between the Kabir Pankds and the Satndmls. They both abstain from meat and liquor, marry at the age of puberty, ordinarily celebrate their ceremonies through the agency of the elders of their own caste, and bury their dead. The Pankas worship the Supreme Being under the name of Kabir, and the Chdmars under the name of Satndm ; while each community has a high priest to whom reverence is paid. At present the majority of the Pankas are culti vators, though formerly all were weavers. The Gonds are the most numerous among the aboriginal tribes, the census of 1872 returning them at 107,359, or 15 per cent, of the total district population ; but so great an intermixture has taken place between them and the Hindu races that they have lost their language and most of their ethnical characteristics, such as the flat forehead, squat nose, pro minent nostril, dark skin, &c., and are scarcely distin guishable from the other classes of the Hindu labouring population. In addition to some of the Hindu deities which they worship, the Gonds have their own gods Bara Deva and Duld Deva. The Kdnwdrs are the next largest section of the aboriginal population, and number 28,419 souls. The upper class among them claim to be Rajputs, and are divided into numerous septs. Although an aboriginal tribe, the census returns them as a Hindu caste. All the northern landholders of Bildspur belong to this tribe, which consequently occupies an influential position.

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The early history of the district is very obscure. From remote ages it was governed by kings of the Haihai dynasty, known as the Chhattisgarh Rdjds, on account of thirty-six forts, of which they were the lords. A genealo gical list of kings of this dynasty has been carefully kept up to the fifty-fifth representative in the year 1740, when the country was seized without a struggle by the Marhattds of Ndgpur. From 1818 to 1830 Bildspur came under the management of the British Government^ the Marhattd chief of Ndgpur being then a minor. In 1854 the country finally lapsed to the British Government, the chief having died without issue. During the Sepoy mutiny a hill chief of the district gave some trouble, but he was speedily captured and executed.

, the chief town of the district of the same name, is situated on the south bank of the Eiver Arpd. It is said to have been founded by a fiskerwoman, named Bildsa, three hundred years ago, and still retains her name. The place, however, came to note only about one 