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 BIJ—BIL

311

tKe fort of NathAwali was one of the objects of their conquest. But the Musalmans say that it was they who came to the aid of the Brahmans, and, under Qazi Adam in the time of Alla-ud-dln (1152 A. D.) drove out the infidels. This is unlikely Musalmans did not help Hindus in those days, and it is only additional testimony to the power of the Basis or Bhars.

But

it is probable that the Musalmans did invade the pargana at about time or at about the end of the twelfth century. They had a hard fight with the infidels outside Bijnaur. On the west side of the town are remains of an extensive graveyard where the fallen were buried, and re^ moved a short space from the rest is the tomb of Shah id Malik Ambar, who, they say, was killed at Bahraich, with his leader, Sayyad Masadd, but who wandered about on his horse a headless corpse till he reached this spot, when the earth opened and received him.

this

Qazi Adam is said to have been the progenitor of the Shekhs of Lucknow. From another of his sons sprang the Pirzddas, who held for some time the proprietorship of Bijnaiir. But they do not seem to have spread through the pargana till the time of Akbar, when it is said that one of the family, while on a hunting expedition, fell in with Eam Das, the Rajput chief of Amosi, lying a few miles to the west of Bijnaur, and was killed by him.

The crime resulted in the surrender by the Rajputs of the greater part of the villages held by them. It is said that they were allowed to keep only 28, and certainly the Musalman proprietorship increased from that time.

The Rajputs mentioned belong to a tribe of Chauhans, who by their own account came into the pargana under Binaik Bfiba somewhere towards the middle of the fifteenth century. They made Amosi their head-quarters, from which they drove out the Bhars, and they give circumstantial accounts of their conquest. They presently, however, separated and divided themselves into the tappas of Amosi, BibipUr, and Narainpur Kaithauli. Their possessions extended straight through the pargana to its southern boundary, and they say that they found the villages as they now hold them, thus settled by their former proprietors. Nearly one-half of the villages in tbe pargana belong to these Rajputs, ten villages to Brahmans, and the remainder to Musalmans, who extend in a band to the north and The tenure is chiefly zamindari. south of the town of Bijnaur itself Not above 11 villages belong to taluqdars. The only resident taluqdar is Mirza Jafar Ali Khan, who purchased two villages from the zamindars.

—Pargana

—

BilGeaM Tahsil Bilgea'm—Disiric'f Hardoi.— population of 11,534, ranks twelfth among the towns of Oudh. It lies near the old left bank of the Ganges, 15 miles nearly south from Hardoi, 10 north-west from Kanauj, 8 south-east from Sandi, and 33 It is the chief town of the Bilgrdm (via Sandi) south-east from Fatehgarh. sub-division of the Hardoi district. There are 2,454 houses, of which 630 Of the population, 6,933 are Hindus and 4,601 Muhammaare of brick. dans.

BILGRA'M*

Bilgram, with



its

By

Mr. A. H. Harington,

c. s.,

Assistant Commissioner,"