Page:Gazetteer of the province of Oudh ... (IA cu31924073057345).pdf/81

 HAR 73 west of the spot, also claimed the bone. The two fought on their border, and the Lodh winning founded Harha, calling it after the bone. During the battle Sayyad Maqbúl-i-Alam, who was giving assistance to the convert, was killed. His tomb is still to be seen inside the old fort. Shortly afterwards an unusually warlike Káyath named Chaturbhuj Dás, an agent of Rája Jai Chand of Kanauj, drove out the trium- phant Lodh, acquired the estate, and founded seventy-five new villages. His family in turn has decayed, and Shiu Ráj Singh, qánúngo, is now his only descendant and the owner of two villages. The present chief of Mauránwán, Kanhaya Lál, acquired the town of Harha by mortgage from this Káyath family. The Ráwats of Harha are thus described by Elliot, “Chronicles of Oonao," pages 63-65:- “The Rawuts are another class, who are peculiar to the district of Oonao. There is inore than one account current respecting their origin, but the generally received tradition is that they are the fifth sons* of Raja Tilokchund, who at his death gave them for their inheritance the pergunnah of Hurha, which is called Rotana or Rawutana from them. At present, however, they only possess three out of twelve Tuppehs, into which the pergunnah is divided, four of the tribes mentioned above, Chundeles, Gehlotes, Gours, and Mahrors, having encroached on their in- heritance. This loss of power is attributed by them to an insurrection of the Sonars, the aboriginal possessors of the soil, in which the Rawuts were nearly extirpated. Only one man escaped, Rawut Bind Singh, who went to Delhi and entered the military service of the king. Having found means to secure favour at Court, he obtained the grant of a force to reinstate himself in his ancestral possessions. The Sonars had a strong fort at Behtur, in which on the 22nd day of the month Cheit they were keeping the festival of the Bhudr Kalie Debie. Biné Singh attacked them here at night, when they were all very drunk, and slaughtered the entire clan. He was too weak, however, to regain the whole of this large pergunnah, and could only occupy the neighbourhood of Behtur, which, like the Sonars, the Rawuts made their headquarters. Biné Singh lived about 250 years ago, though there are no accurate grounds for determining the exact date. After some generations he was succeeded, about 1700, by the man who occupies the chief place in Rawut estimation, Dulnaran Singh, who, though not converted, received from Delhi the Mahommedan title of Cheepie Khan. He recovered the Rawut sovereignty over all the Hurha pergunnah, and even extended it into pergunnah Oonao, wresting from the Syuds the large village of Murtizanugur, with its adjoining hamlets. were cart-drivers, who is the battle with the Puthang rallied round Tilokchund in com- pany with the palki barers and carried bim off in safety. The origiu of the story is pro- bably that the name Rawut is supposed to belong especially to the Aheer tribe, which from earters are usually taken. The story of the Ravuts themselves is that they are legitimate Baises, an that in the muesacre by the cowars only one woman escaped, who was protected by an Aheer. She was pregnant at the time, and in gratitude for the protection called her Bon Rawut biné Singh, after the Aheer's title. It is more probable that the Rawuts are illegitimate descendants of Tilokchund by an Aheer woman. 10
 * The common Rajpoot euphemisor for bastards. Another account is that the Ravuts