Page:Gazetteer of the province of Oudh ... (IA cu31924073057352).pdf/39

 NIG 31 The Bais, however, had no real zamindari here, and the real owners of the soil were Gautams and Janwárs, who were regarded and treated as the zamindars on the annexation of the province. But the widow of Jawahir Singh, the Thakuráin Guláb Kunwar, was settled with to their exclusion on its re-occupation in 1858 A.D., and has been succeeded by her adopted son, the present taluqdar, a member of another branch of the family. His estate in this pargana is assessed at Rs. 5,300. Taluqa of Jabrauli.-The history of Lala Kanhaiya Lal, of Jabrauli, better known as the taluqdar of Mauránwán, lies more properly in the Unao district. NIGOHAN-Pargana NIGOHÁN SISSAINDI--Tahsil MOHANLALGANJ--Dis- trict LUCKNOW.--- Nigohán, on the Lucknow and Rae Bareli road at the 23rd milestone from Lucknow, lies a little off the road to the right, and is beautifully surrounded by woods. It was under the native rule, the administrative centre of the pargana known Nigohán, and was included in the Baiswara division of the province. The name of the town is said to have been derived from Rája Náhuk of the Súrajbansi line of Ajodhya, but the tradition is mixed up with the mythology of a snake whose body the rája, it is said, was condemned to assume, and which dwelt in a tank to the south of the village. A yearly festival is held to the memory of this snake, and the origin of the name (Nigohán, probably lies in this . It is said to have been one of the centres of Bbar rule, and the Bhars were driven out by Janwárs, who migrated here from Ikauna in the Bahraich dis- trict. A generation or two after him saw his line ending in a daughter who had been married to Lúka Singh, Gautam of Kunta Naraicha, royal dynasty, and Nigohan, with a few villages, fell to him, and it has ever since remained in his family. It is probably that the Janwárs did pot arrive in this part of the country till some time towards the end of the 16th cen. tury. They are nearly connected with the Janwárs of Mau, who, it is said, were admitted by the Shekhs of Rahmatnagar, of the same family as the Salempur Chaudhris, the owners and occupiers of a great part of the adjoining pargana of Mohanlalganj during the reign of Akbar. It was during the reign of this emperor that a pargana was made ont of two tappas, 22 Gautam and 24 Janwár villages, with Nigohán as its centre. As its history will show the population is very largely Hindu. It was an mportant division of a revenue circle of the Baiswara ision, and was ruled from Haidargarh maintaining here only a tahsildar and qánúngo. The population is 2,306 inhabiting 509 houses, and the Brahman element ic this is very strong. Their principal means of subsistence are the numerous large groves which surround the village and which have always been held rent-free. The few remaining inhabitants that are not agricul- tural follow the ordinary village trades. There is a Government vernacular school here, and the sales in the bazar amount to 17,500. In the centre of the village is a small shrine on which offerings are made on Sundays and Mondays to the eponymous hero of the place, Bába Náhuk, and the Gautams light in his house a daily taper. And in the month of Kátik there is the annual snake festival at the Abhiniwára tank, the tank where the snake was thrown off (Abhiniwára). On the bank of