Page:Gazetteer of the province of Oudh ... (IA cu31924073057345).pdf/85

 HAW 77 İts area is 126 square miles ; 43,000 acres are cultivated, 5,280 acres under groves, 12,144 acres are barren, 5,836 acres are capable of cultivation. The population is 131,337, which amounts to 1,042 to the square mile. The Government revenue is Rs. 96,920, which is Re. 1-15-0, per acre of arable land, a very low rate. In aldition to the rivers Gogra and Madha already mentioned, a petty rivulet, the Telai or Tilang, which is of some traditional importance, has its rise in pargana Mangalsi, runs through this pargana, and falls into the Gogra at Ajodhya. Opposite Fyzabad the Gogra is five miles broad from bank to bank in the rains, and its hed at this point is subject to continual change, so that it can never be said till the waters subside whether the ferry will be over one or two or three streams. It is beyond question that the bridge of boats ought to be at Lacbhmanghát, where there is but one stream between high banks, and where it would, with little alte- ration of roads, carry the traffic of Basti and Gorakhpur as well as that of Gonda. The Madha, which has its rise in mauza Bisudhi, is subject to sudden rises in the rains, is not navigable in this part of the district, but is much used for irrigation purposes. Tradition, here as elsewhere in this district, attributes all rights in the soil to the Bhars, who were suppressed after the Muhammadan supremacy, and of whom traces are still pointed out in numerous villages. In more modern times (1) Bashisht Brahmans, (2) Súrajbansi Chhattris, (3) Gargbansi Chhattris, (4) Bais Chhattris, (5) Upáddhia Brahmans, (6) Bhadarsa Sayyads, (7) Maujadubanspur Kurmis, were the chief landel proprietors. Of these several families I now proceed to give some brief details. The Bashisht Brahmans.---Themembers of this family assert descent from Bashisht Muni, the spiritual adviser of the immortal Rám Chandar from whom that portion of the town which is still known as Bashisht Tola takes its name, and whose sacred memory is still kept fresh by the annual visits of his votaries to the Bashisht Kund or reservoir in the same quarter. After the vicissitudes of the Buddhist and atheist periods, when the Vedic faith was for the time, it is believed, locally suppressed, Ajodbya was Again traditionally restored and Brahmanically re-peopled through the exertions of Bikramájít of Ujjain ; and Kashí Rám and other members of the present Bashisht tribe, who now inhabit the ancient haunts of the family, aver that their ancestors were then recalled by the sovereign in question from Kashmir, and received from him large assignments of revenue-free land. It is the further averment of these persons that they retained their possessions during the supremacy of the non-Brahmanical Bhars, but it is almost needless to say that no proofs are extant either of their advent from Kashmir or their steadfastness of faith under the Bhars. In the Kín-i-Akbari, the oldest reliable historical record, Bashisht Brahmans are stated to be the prevailing caste of zamindars in this pargana. The