Page:Gazetteer of the province of Oudh ... (IA cu31924073057345).pdf/360

352

Rajput conquest—The Musalman conquest—Earlier tribes of Bhars, Arakhs, and Pásis, and ancient state of the country.

Only a few particulars will be given here as the bulk of the facts will be found related under each pargana.

Some few of the Rajput colonies, as the Panwárs of Itaunja (Mahona) and the Chaubáns of Amosi, conducted their invasions under the auspices of, or it will be enough to say, with the sanction of the Delhi emperors; for at that time the Muhammadan rule in this province was little more than nominal, and all that the Rajputs effected seems to have been due to their own strength and exertions. The Rajputs, after the tide of their immigration had once set in, made themselves 'masters of the whole country.

Rajput conquest.—Amethias and Gautams possessed themselves of Mohanlalganj and Nigohán. Subsequently there came to the former pargana a colony of Janwárs from Ikauna in Bahraich, but they settled peaceably under the Shekhs who had invaded and driven out the Amethias from the north of the pargana, then known as Amethi, in the middle of the 16th century. The Bais to the south and Chauhans through the centre of the pargana held Bijnaur, The Bais invaded and possessed themselves of Kákori. Nikumbus, Gharwárs, Gautams, and Janwars spread through Malihabad; Panwars and Chauhans invaded Mahona.

Musalman conquests.—Then came the Musalman conquest. Little seems to have been effected by the first invasion of Sayyad Masaud in A.D. 1030. Traces of it may have remained in some of the old pargana towns, which they made their encamped settlements as in Nagram and Amethi of pargana Mohanlalganj, through which he is said to have passed; where muhallas are still existing containing, as it is said, the descendants of his old followers who founded them. But for a long time they did not dare venture far from any of these, or from the headquarters which he had fixed for them at Satrikh,

The next invasion was that of Muhammad Bakhtiyár Khilji, during the time of Shaháb-ud-dín in A.D. 1202. But he, too, seems to have left but little trace behind him. He may have founded the village of Bakhtiyárnagar near Malihabad, and may have left some Patháns in the town itself, but though they may have resisted any attack made upon themselves, as in the case of the Bais under the Bait Rája Sathna of Kákori; they never ventured out into the surrounding country to colonize it.

The earliest Musalman colonies do not probably date from much before the middle of the 13th century. Amongst the first to come were the Shekhs of Kasmandi in the Malihabad pargana. Then came the Shekhs of Qidwára in the Lucknow pargana in the direction of Satrikh. Many scattered Musalman communities also are spread through Kursi and Dewa, but the native accounts themselves favour the belief that they