Page:Gazetteer of the province of Oudh ... (IA cu31924073057352).pdf/230

 222 RAE Bikramajít fled, and took refuge in a large shiwála whither he was pursued by Sál Bahan. At the mere sound of the boy's voice the ponderous gates of the temple rolled back, and Bikramajít acknowledged his conqueror with appropriate homage. A reasonable arrangement was made on the spot for the partition of the royal power, and on the elder king's death, Sál Bában became undisputed Rája of India. Later in life be conquered the Punjab, and died and was buried at Siálkot, Of the history of his descendants till the time of the invasion of Oudh by Abhai Chand nothing is positively known. The Ráj Tarangini relates that a Bais general usurped the throne of Delhi at the beginning of the seventh century, A.D. Two different pedigrees connect Tilok Chand with Sál Bahan--one giving 42 generations with Abhai Chand at the fourteenth, the other 31, with Abhai Chand at the twenty-second. Twenty names are common to both lists which are sufficiently unlike to prove separate sources, and sufficiently like to show a common historical ground-work. Both where they corrobo- rate and where they contradict one another they are equally interesting and unintelligible. The supporters of the longer list state that in Bhagwant Ráe's time the kingdom was divided between his three sons, one of whom got Oudh. I may hazard a conjecture that this is a historical tradition on the follow- ing grounds — The first name common to the two lists is Ghuk Kumar, who in the longer list is represented as the father of the above named Bhagwant Ráe, and below him the number of generations and the names, though in a different order, are almost identical in both lists. This is sufficient to make it very probable that Ghuk Kumar's reign was an epoch in Bais history, and the division of the kingdom in his son's reigu affords an excellent explanation. It is likely that the story refers to a forced change of abode before a victorious enemy, or a ver sacrum, by which an overcrowded home was relieved of some of the younger and more vigorous offshoots, The coincidence of the pedigrees makes it reasonable to suppose that this took place thirty generations before the time of Tilok Chand, in the eighth century, A.D. Between Abhai Chand and Tilok Chand the shorter list is undoubtedly in the main correct; and the extraordinary divergences between the two are amply accounted for by the violent vicissitudes of fortune which marked Bais history in the reigns of Ráe Tás and his two successors. Twelve centuries after the death of Sál Bában two gallant youths who boasted that they were of his race found themselves and their followers at a bathing place on the Ganges when an affray arose between some soldiers of the Gautam rája of Argal and the forces of the Subahdar. The Hindus were defending the honour of their queen and her daughter from the lust of the Musalmans, and no Rajput could turn a deaf ear to the agonized appeals for help that issued from the lady's bullock cart. Sa the Bais joined the losing side of their countrymen, rallied the fugitives, and beat off the Muhammadans, but left one of their princes dead on the