Page:Gazetteer of the province of Oudh ... (IA cu31924073057345).pdf/426

 418 MAH the greater, for the twelve villages do not cover a larger area. His des- cendants still hold eight of the villages. Some eighty years ago they lost Dinkarpur-Jhalawwa, which they had to give to the qanungos of Maribon as compensation for the murder by them of one of the family in office, who had recommended an increase of the revenue. Two other villages they sold or mortgaged, and one Jhurukpur they lost to a farmer. Chauhans of Bhauli.— The Chauhans of Bhauli, lying to the east of Kathwára, colonized thirty-two villages in the south-west of the pargana some eighteen generations ago. They entered the pargana under Kesri Singh, à Mainpuri Chauhán of Kusam bhar, probably at about the same time as the Kathwára Chauhans and the Panwárs of Itaunja. They still hold all the villages they then colonized. It is said that on their arriving they found them all laid waste and deserted. The names of many of the villages certainly show that they were founded by the descendants of Kesri. Bhauli, as the story goes, was a deserted site from which the inhabitants had fled owing to the presence of a Brahman's spirit. Kesri had to lay this ghost, and ask permission to re-people the village. Hence the clan gets its name of Rákulas. Another legend says that Kesri was visited by a Brahman woman's spirit (churail), and that his descen- dants are all sprung from her. The story may be interpreted that Bhauli was some Brahman village, and that the Chauhéps, attacked by some cala- mity when they seized it, attributed their misfortunes to the Brahman spirit, whose anger they bad aroused by their unlicensed trespass on his domains. He at all events inspired sufficient dread to make them pay him honours which are observed up to the present time. In Pulaira, one of the villages, is a chabútra (platform) raised to a Baram Rákas, on which offerings are made on the last day of the month of Aghan, and the offer- ings are taken by the Brahmans of the place. MAKONA—-Pargana MAHONA–Tahsil MALIHABAD-District LUCK- NOW.-Mahona is situated two miles to the east of the Lucknow and Sitapur road, and is distant about fifteen miles from Lucknow. It was formerly the headquarters town of the pargana and the residence of the government officials, but the homestead of the village of Gobindpur adjoined it, and it is said that on one occasion the Brahman proprietors of the latter village broke into the Government fort and recovered a child that they had placed in hostage for some revenue. The ámil thereupon moved his fort to Bahádurganj, a short distance off. The place has for a long time in consequence ceased to be of any importance. The population is 3,594 ; but this includes the two villages of Gobindpur and Kesrámau Kalán which have been built on to it. No Musalman families of any consequence have ever lived here. It belongs to a Panwar taluqdar, Bábu Prithipal Singh, and it was conquered by his ancestors from Ráe Mohan Muráo, the reputed founder. There is a Government school here at which the attendance is from seventy to eighty. The amount of annual sales in the bazar is not large, amounting to Rs. 8,400, and neither manufactures nor trades flourish in any way. MAHARAJNAGAR*-Pargana BISWAN—Tahsil BISWAN-District SITAPUR,—Maharájnagar is 16 miles east of Sitapur, vid Biswán, the road
 * B. Mr. M. L Ferrar, C.S., A.esistant Commissioner,