Note 3 — THE TRIBES AND CASTES OF THE NORTH-WESTERN PROVINCES AND OUDH.

Traditions. 2. This tribe has given rise to much wild speculation. In Gorakhpur they claim to be the descendants of, and named from, an early Kshatriya Râja named Bhâradwâja, whose sons strayed from the ancient way of life and took to the use of meat and wine. Their descendant Surha settled in the village of Surauli, and wishing to marry a high caste Râjput girl, was murdered by her relations, and became an evil spirit, who does much damage still if he is not duly propitiated. That they claim to have been once a dominant race in the eastern part of Oudh and the North-Western Provinces is certain. Thus Sir C. Elliott writes:—“The scene before us in Oudh at the fall of the historic curtain is an uninhabited forest country and a large colony of Sûrajbansis occupying Ajudhya as their capital. When the curtain rises again we find Ajudhya destroyed, the Sûrajbansis utterly banished, and a large extent of country ruled over by aborigines, called Cheros in the Far East, Bhars in the Centre, and Râjpâsis in the West. The great revolution seems to be satisfactorily explained by the conjecture that the Bhars, Cheros, etc., were the aborigines whom the Aryans had driven to the hills, and who, swarming down from thence not long after the beginning of our era, overwhelmed the Aryan civilisation even in Ajudhya itself, drove the Sûrajbansis under Kanaksen to emigrate into distant Gujarât, and spread over all the plain between the Himalayas and that spur of the Vindhya range which passes through the south of Mirzapur.”3 Again we read that the primitive inhabitants of Sultânpur are said to have been Bhars. “Their character is painted in the most sombre colours. They are represented to have been dark-complexioned, ill-favoured, and of mean stature, intemperate in their habits, and not only devoid of any religious belief themselves, but addicted to the persecution of those who ventured to profess any. They are said to have possessed a few scattered and detached fortresses to serve as rallying points; but to have been otherwise of nomadic and predatory habits, while their numbers are said to have barely sufficed to furnish a scanty population to the tract they occupied.”4 In support of these pretensions to have been a ruling race in the eastern part of the Province, numerous old stone forts, embankments, wells, and subterraneous caverns are attributed to them. Thus the Chiraiyakot fort, in Ghâzipur, is said to have been their work.5 The same is the case with numerous ruins in the Basti and Ghâzipur Districts.6 The present town of Bahrâich is said to take its name from them and to have been their oldest abode, from which they spread southward into Faizâbâd and Sultânpur. Similarly they are said to have left their name in the Bhadohi and Barhar parganas of Mirzapur.7 Two other fortresses of the Bhars are said to have been Zahurâbâd and Lakhnesar, in Ghâzipur.8 In Gorakhpur they are said to have been ousted by the Kausik Râjputs. Mr. Sherring considers their capital in Mirzapur to have been Pampapura near Bindhâchal, where extensive ruins and a curious series of bearded stone figures are attributed to them.9 In fact, throughout Oudh and the eastern part of the North-West Provinces every town the name of which does not end in pur, âbâd, or mau is assigned to them.10