Page:Gazetteer of the province of Oudh ... (IA cu31924073057352).pdf/254

 246 RAE of Tilok Chand and ending with the reconquest by Saídat Khan, and the last reaching down to annexation, during which the whole social fabric was changed by the Lucknow Government. Throughout, the main fact has been the living growth of Hinduism, beside which the Muhammadan empires, with their elaborate revenue systems and network of officials, have been merely secondary causes, like artificial dams, temporarily impeding and distorting the course of a strong river. Of the first period little remains to be said. The Hindu clans were slowly and painfully acquiring their hold on the soil which was never to be permanently loosened. Their opponents were the Muhammadans, who like them were invaders, and a Government already established in the country. There are good grounds for believing that they found congenial elements on the spot in the remains of older Hindu clans, who were living in a state of subjection to the Bhars, but this subject is enveloped in much obscurity, and I have not the information which would enable me to speak with clearness and certainty. All account of Alá-ud-din's connection with Oudh has been omitted. There can be no doubt that he sent frequent expeditions into the country, and his name is still dimly remembered; but the fact that Chhattri pedi- grees are silent on the point, proves that at that time the great clans of the present day were not in the position of rulers; and the not unfrequent dis- covery of old Muhammadan coins in Bhar remains countenances the con- jecture that the kingdom of that people was still flourishing. He yet lives vividly in Mánikpur tradition, which represents that Jalâl-ud-din's head was cut off as he was crossing the river from Karra, and carried by the waves of the Ganges to the opposite shore, confusing with the more famous story some circumstances of a Jaunpur sedition more than a hundred and fifty years later. A bluff promontory overlooking Karra may have been the site of the fatal pavilion, and three small tombs are pointed out as covering the bodies of the old emperor and two of his relations. Amidst a tangled underwood of briers, the remains of an ancient mosque and a small stone slab before which villagers worship the impress of the feet of Buddha, under the name of the Bhumia Ráni (earth queen) carry the imagination past a series of fallen empires. Everything leads me to believe that up to the end of the first chapter the invading Hindus had acquired no prominent position. Their most powerful clan do not pretend to have spread beyond the very limited tract now known as the seven and a half parganas, and the names Siddhúpur and Ghátampur, with their separate families of Siddhúpuri and Ghatampuri Bais, probably mark the encroachments of successive rájas. After having been driven back by the Jaunpur empire the returning wave found no- thing to oppose it, and spread far and wide over the whole of the country. The kingdom of Tilok Chand probably resembled in every way that of the great #indu rájas of the west, and it is not likely that he was more than nominally dependent on the distant and distracted empire of Delhi. It has been seen the kingdom broke up immediately on the death of its founder ; but it was unquestionably at this time that the country was first,