Page:The Imperial Gazetteer of India - Volume 2 (2nd edition).pdf/362

 BHAGALPUR SUB-DIVISION AND TOWN

352

regarding Bhagalpur

District,

my

see

Statistical

Account of Bengal,

Bengal Census Report and the Bengal Adnimistration Reports from 1880 to 1883.] for 1881 Head-quarters Sub-division of Bhagalpur District, Bhagalpur. Bengal, lying between 25° 3' 30" and 25° 20' 30" n. lat., and between pp. 17-262 (Triibner, 1877); also the

vol. xiv.



—

86° 41' 15" and 87° 33' 30"

towns and (1881)

villages,

546,899,

E.

long.



area,

936 square miles



number of

1348; number of occupied houses, 93,073; population namely, 468,861 Hindus, 71,645 Muhammadans,

483 Christians, and 5910 ‘others’: average density of population, 584 per square mile mile, 103



villages per square mile,



number of persons per

village,

i

430


 * 44



houses per square

persons per house, 5 ’9.

The

Sub-division comprises the 4 thdnds (police circles) of Bhigalpur, Kumarganj, Colgong, and Bihipur. In 1883, it contained 4 civil and 5 criminal courts



strength of regular and municipal police, 300

men



watchmen {chmikiddrs), 1070. Chief town, cantonment, and administrative headBhagalpur. quarters of the District of the same name, Bengal; situated on the right or south bank of the Ganges, rvhich is 7 miles wide at this The town is 2 miles in length, and about a mile in breadth. point. village

Lat.

—

25° 15' 16" N., long. 87°

2'

29"

E.

Population (1881) 68,238,

namely, 48,924 Hindus, 18,867 Muhammadans, and 447 ‘others’; number of males, 34,916 females, 33,322. Municipal income in 1880-81,^3823; expenditure, ;^39oo. Station on the loop line of the East Indian Railway; distance from Calcutta, 265 miles; by river,

—

Within the town and

neighbourhood (at Champanagar) shrines, and two remarkable places of worship, belonging to the Jain sect of Oswals, one of them The erected by the great banker of the last century, Jagat Seth. 326 miles.

are

some

interesting

its

Muhammadan

Karnagarh Plateau, near the town, formerly contained the lines of the Bhdgalpur Hill Rangers,’ organized by Cleveland in 1780 {vide Santal Parganas). It continued in their possession until 1863, when the battalion was disbanded, and is now held by a wing of a Native The town contains two monuments to the memory Infantry regiment. sometime Collector of Bhagalpur DisCleveland, Augustus Mr. of trict, one of brick, erected by the landholders of the District; the other of stone, sent out by the Court of Directors of the East India Company from England. An attempt has been made to prove that Bhdgalpur occupies the site of the ancient Palibothra, but there seems no reason to doubt the generally accepted identification of that city Bhagalpur figures more than once in Muhammadan with Patna. Akbar’s troops marched through the chronicles of the i6th century. town when invading Bengal in 1573 and 1575. In Akbar’s second war against the Afghan King of Bengal, his general Man Singh made Bhagalpur the rendezvous of all the Behar contingents, which in 1592 ‘