Note 74 — Chapter IV · THE WORSHIP OF THE SAINTED DEAD.

Of these villages which were overturned by a curse we have many examples all over the country. The ruins at Bakhira Dih in Basti are said to have been a great city which was overthrown because a Râja seduced a Brâhman girl. At Batesar in Agra is the Aundha Khera, which records a similar catastrophe. So Bângarmau in Unâo is called the Lauta Shahr or “overthrown city,” because Mîrân Sâhib destroyed it to punish the curiosity of the Râja who wanted to know why the robes of the saint which a washerman was washing gave forth a divine perfume. So the town of Kâko was overwhelmed by the saint Bîbî Kamâlo because the Buddhist Râja gave her a dish cooked of the flesh of rats, which came to life when she touched them. At Besnagar in Bhopâl the king and his subjects clung to a heavenly chariot and were carried to the skies and their city was overthrown, and the saint Qutb Shâh overturned the city of Sunit because the Râja used to kill a child daily to cure an ulcer with which he was afflicted.74