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 GON

540

The

first

of these reigned without a rival from Hisampur in Bahraich Gorakhpur district. It is related of them that their leader,

far into the

Sahaj Singh, came at the head of a small force froi;i pargana Gohumisuj in Bagalana, the western frontier of the Narbada valley, in the army of one of the Tughlaq emperors, and was commissioned by him to bring into obedience the countries between the Gogra and the hills. Their first settlement was in the Koeli jungle, about two miles to the south-west of Khurasa, the town which subsequently gave its name to the r4j. story common to the whole of Oudh accounts for their accession to power, and the disappearance of the old ruling dynasty. Ugrasen, the Dom raja, was struck by the beauty of one of the daughters of the Chhattri, and demanded her in marriage. The Kalhans raja dissembled his rage at the indignity offered him, and pretended to comply; but when the Dom came with his followers to claim his bride, plied them with strong drink till they were insensible, and then murdered them. Two pedigrees are given of the rajas between Sahaj R^e and Achal Narain Singh, the last that of the raja of Babhnipiir showing thirteen, while of the dynasty the Kalhanses of Chhedwara, with greater probability, only give seven names. In fact the whole of their history is enveloped in obscurity, one account making them originally Brahmans, who assumed the Chhattri caste on attaining the dignity of raja, a tradition which is eminently unlikely, but worth recording, as it shows that such a change of class, supported as it is by not a few authentic instances, is anything but unfamiliar to Hindu ideas. They are said to have distributed the thinlypeopled country in jagirs of three and a half kos each among the leading officers of their cavalry, and there is certainly no reason to doubt that the principal zamindari families to the south of the Kuwana, the Bisens of Qila Rampur in pargana Digsar, who subsequently succeeded to the raj of Gonda, the Goraha Bisens of Mahadewa, and the Bandhalgotis of Manikapur owed their establishment to this era. The last of the race, R^ja Achal Narain Singh, stands out clearly in tradition as an example of the divine vengeance which overtakes lust and tyranny. His last act in a career of unbridled oppression was to carry off to his fort at Lurhia Ghdt, near Khurasa, the virgin daughter of a small Brahman zamindar in the Burhapara pargana. The outraged father pleaded as vainly as the father of Chryseis for reparation, and his vengeance was as dramatic and more complete.

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For twenty-one days he sat under a tamarind tree at the door of the meat and drink, till death put an end to his sufferings. His wife, who_ had followed him, died at the same time from grief. Before his spirit fled, he pronounced a curse of utter extinction on the family of his oppressor, modifying it only in favour of the offspring of the younger rani, who alone had endeavoured to induce him to break his fast, and to whom he promised that her descendants, the present r^jas of Babhnipair, should succeed to a small raj but that as his eyes had fallen in from hunger, so should they be always blind. His ghost went to the river Sarju, and implored her assistance in avenging himself on the raja, but she referred him to her elder sister the Ganges, who said she was too distant to interfere effectually, and referred him back to the Sarju. At last that stream, the faithful friend of Brahmans, consented to help him, ravisher, refusing