Page:Gazetteer of the province of Oudh ... (IA cu31924024153987).pdf/51

 INTRODUCTION.

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others were conceded small dues from every village at each harvest. Members of the aristocracy were given posts at court or commands in the imperial army ; high-sounding titles, and

drums, and standards of varying grades of dignity were conferred with good political effect on a people singularly impressible by such distinctions, and the chieftain of Hasanpur Bandhua (a member of one of the highest and most ancient Chhattri families), who had adopted the court religion, was recognized as the head of the hierarchy of southern chieftains, with power to invest them with the title of raja. The strength of the central power meant peace in the provinces, and it is possible that the Hindu lords, free from the apprehension of external danger and the expense of maintaining forces of their own, were moderately contented in a position which was the best compatible with This period is at any rate looked back upon imperial necessities. as one of the brightest in their annals, which under the first Mughal emperors are singularly free from accounts of dissension or revolt.

One of the principal results of the strong government was that the younger branches of the ruling houses almost invariably cast off their allegiance to the head of the clan, and when we again find the Hindu element assert its predominance, the ancient rajas have yielded the leadership to the most able and vigorous among the cadets, the small states have been split up into a number of those still smaller baronies which formed the basis on which the present taluqas are founded. When the Muhammadan empire was broken up in the last days of Aurangzeb by the rise of the Mahrattas, the chieftains of Oudh at once acquired an almost comAn enterprising governor from Allahabad plete independence. or the west might occasionally endeavour to realize the revenue, but he was sure to be met in arms and eventually compelled to withdraw. The Hindus, as was natural, broke out at once into internal war, and once more the ablest of their leaders applied themselves to the enlargement by conquest from their neighbours of the terriThe successes of the Kanhpurias tories under their authority. of Tiloi, the Bais of Daundia Khera, both cadet famiUes, and the Bisens of Gonda, called into existence states of no great extent it is true, but larger than had been known since the days of Akbar. "When the great Nawab Saadat Khan was appointed wazir Oudh as his fief, he found his entry opposed by the received and The Bais seem to have yielded after a parley, chieftains. local with only a sham resistance, but the Khichara Kanhpurias and the 6