Page:Gazetteer of the province of Oudh ... (IA cu31924073057345).pdf/247

 KHE 239 to be the scene of an exploit so famous and so well known as that which occurred at Bairátklera. Granting that some such event occurred, assuming also that it must have happened as Mr. Wheeler argues somewhere not very far from Delhi, this village being also the only place so situated for which any claim is advanced, that claim being supported by other and converging traditions, and by an alliance of names which could hardly have been imposed for the purpose of bolstering up the title of one place to be the scene of a single event, it is hard to see why that claim should be disallowed. It is absurd to argue that the story was localized here, because a pre-existing name suited it; for there are inuumerable places of the same name in Oudh and Northern India; there being another only five miles from Balmiar Barkhár. If it were the object of unscrupulous priests to forge such traditions, the motive would have applied elsewhere, and dozens of Barkhárs would have claimed to be considered the Pándus' city of refuge ; but no other has done so. It is probable that whatever of real fact under- lies this tale actually occurred at Barkhár, as also that Arjun really married the daughter of Gandrak, and fought with his son Babhruvahan at Manwan in the Sitapur district.* There seems also some reason to suppose that the Bachhil Chhattris are the descendants of this Rája Bairát or of his subjects. General Cun- ninghamt believes that similarity of sound alone has led to the identifi- cation of Barkhår with Bariakhera and Vaírát Rája ; but in his account of Dewal we find the Báchhil Rajputs claim descent from Rája Vena, whose son was Virát, the reputed founder of Baribhár or Virátkhera, and whom I believe to be the same as Vira Varmma of the inscription." The Báchhil Cbhattris are theu a possible link from the hoariest tra- ditions of Indian antiquity to a middle age period, which has been fairly chronicled, and lastly to the complete annals of modern times. I have been enabled to present to the reader one rather dim outlined picture of life in 1800 B.C.; another follows in 900 A.D., a third about 1640 A.D., a fourth in 1850 A.D., and a fifth in 1870 A.D., all drawn from the annals of one tribe and family still resident in the ancestral fief. It is the more desirable to follow out the annals of this clan,-first, because it is one of the very few in Oudh which does seem rightfully to claim an antiquity equal to that of English noble families which came in with the conqueror, and second, because its surviving members though respectable are too poor to purchase false genealogies, and so humble in the social scale as to render a fictitious pedigree of no value. Consequently they now relate ouly the real traditions of their ancestors. Doubtless in the days of their prosperity their own vanity and the venal flattery of dependents invented many an incident of heraldry and chivalry to their credit, but these bave been long forgotten, and only what is true in great measure remains. We left Rája Bairát at Barkhår, six miles south of Muhamdi, his sub- jects perhaps the ancestors of the present Báchbils; they moved to + Cunningham's Reports of Archæological Survey, Journal A.S., No. cxxx., page 270
 * Wheeler's India, Vol. 1., page 410,