Page:Gazetteer of the province of Oudh ... (IA cu31924073057352).pdf/229

 RAE 221 methodical madness for raising fortifications. Mánikpur was named after Mánik Chand, the great Gahrwár rája, who reigned from that town. It is said tllat he fell at the hands of Shaháb-ud-din Gardezi,t the lieutenant of Ibráhím Sharqi. A part of the remnants of his family fled to Salon, of which town their descendants are at present part proprietors. After his success at Dalmau the Shah marched on Rae Bareli, which like the towns just mentioned was at that time a Bhar village clustered round a large fort. The traditions of the Tár Bir demon, and the mons- trous well whose overflowing threatened to swamp the town have already been told. It is singular that traces of buffalo sacrifice, which must have descended from the Bhar times existed in connection with this fort up to annexation. When a Muhammadan názim came he sacrificed the buffalo; a Hiedu contented himself with slitting its ear. The next enery met by the Muhammadans was the Bais colony in the south-west of the district, and it is necessary that I should stop to give an account of that remarkable family. Their early history is involved in much obscurity, and for the sake of clearness I will here leave all other families than the Tilokchandi Bais out of consideration. The story of the birth and life of Sal Bahan, the son of the world serpent, and their first ancestor, has all the appearance of being a genuine tradition, in spite of the monstrous and indecent Brahmanical traditions with which it has been overlaid; and it agrees well with pro- bable historical conjecture that this prince was one of the Takshak or Scythian dynasty, who were known as nágus or snakes by their Arian subjects--a conjecture which is further confirmed by the fact that the serpent is the tribe deity of his descendants at the present day. The original tradition, as far as I have been able to extract it from the various accounts which I have heard, is as follows : -A son of the great world serpent was brought up under the roof of a potter of Múngi Pátan on the Nerbudda, and early showed by his wit and strength that he was destined to be a king. As a judge among his youthful companions, by what would now be considered a simple process of cross examination, he excited the wonder of a people unaccustomed to law courts; and deserved and received the same kind of honour as was accorded to Daniel by the Jews of the captivity after his succes investigation of the case of Su- sanna and the elders. His amusement was to make clay figures of elephants, horses, and men at arms, and before he had well reached man- hood he led his fictile army to do battle with the great king Bikramajít. When the hosts met, the clay of the young hero became living brass, and the weapons of his enemies fell harmless on the hard material. appenring at any time within the years 1000 and 1400 A.D., and have successfully eluded all my efforts to saddle them with a date. I think it probable that Mánik Chand and poesi- ble that Dal and Bál lived near the beginning of the thirteenth century. ud-din Gardezi settled at Mánikpur in the reign of Qutb-ud-din-bin-Altamah. Manikpur they suppose two Sheháb-ud-díos, one of the 13th century, and another, father of Sharf-ud-din, Qazi-ul-Quzzát in Ibrahim Sultan's time. Like all the Malanmadan fatailies of Rae Bareli and Partabyarh, they have no trustworthy pedigree.
 * Mánik Chand as well as Ds and Bál, the Bhar chieftaias, are constantly
 * In Shekh Ahmad's history of the Saygads of India, it is stated that Shabab-