Note 11 — G

Hayobans, Haihobans (said to be derived from haya-vansa, “the race of the horse”).—A Râjput sept found in the Ballia district. They are of the Lunar race and in the highest rank among the tribes of the District. According to Sir H. M. Elliot11:—“Maheswati, the capital of the Lunar Râjputs, in the Narbada valley, was founded by Sahesra Arjuna, of the Hihya or Hayobans race. Their dynasty for fifty-two generations was established at Ratanpur, in the Central Provinces. The last of the dynasty, Râja Ragnâth Sinh, died about one hundred and ten years ago. The Hayobans of Ballia claim descent from the Ratanpur kings. Chandra Got, a cadet of this house, is said to have, in 850 A.D., migrated northwards and settled at Manjha, on the Ganges, now included in the Sâran District, and waged successful war with the aboriginal Cheros. After nearly a couple of hundred years his descendants left Manjha and settled south of the Ganges at Bihiya, where they remained for five centuries and subdued the Cheros.” In or about 1528 A.D. the Râja Bhopat Deva, or perhaps one of his sons, violated Maheni, a Brâhman woman of the house of the Purohit or family priest of the Hayobans clan. She burnt herself to death, and in dying imprecated the most fearful curses on the Hayobans race. After this tragedy the clan left Bihiya, and passed beyond the Ganges to the Ballia Pargana, where for a time they were located at Gâê Ghât, and finally settled at Haldi, from which the Hayobans Râja now takes his title. The tomb of Maheni, under a pîpal tree close to the Railway at Bihiya, is still visited by women of every caste, who come in numbers either to invoke her as a deified being or to offer oblations in commemoration of her. None of them dares to enter Bihiya, which contains the remains of their ancestors’ fort. They are more swarthy than most Râjputs, and Mr. Carnegy suggests that they may have been originally a Tamil race.12