Note 127 — Volume II. (continued 2)

The Gonda branch. 2. “In the reign of Akbar and with the fall of the Kalhans rule, the Bisens, who subsequently, under the Râjas of Gonda, took a leading position among the trans-Ghâgra powers appear for the first time on the stage of history. The clan is one of the most numerous in Eastern Oudh, and is scattered in clusters of small Zamîndâri communities throughout the Districts of Gonda, Faizâbâd, and Partâbgarh, with the river Kuâno for its northern and the Ganges for its southern limit. Its principal seat is beyond the boundaries of Oudh at Majhauli, in Gorakhpur, and its members differ from those of many of the other ruling clans in having no recollection of a departure from some distant home in the West, and being unable to connect their countless houses by any intelligible pedigree. They admit that they are Bhûmiya Thâkurs, or indigenous, as far as they can ascertain, in their present territory. It is true that they assert their descent from a common ancestor, Mayûra Rishi; and in thus deriving themselves from a mythical religious character outside the distinctions of caste, agree with others of the less aristocratic among the local Chhatri families who are unable to claim any connection with the heroes of the Solar and Lunar races. The ties of common clanship are very vaguely recognised, and I believe that the Bisen of Majhauli has always declined to confirm them by eating with even the great homonymous chieftains of Gonda and Râmpur, in Faizâbâd. Those settled in Oudh were all of them before the time of Akbar in the position of ordinary village zamîndârs, dividing their inheritance among all the males on the ordinary coparcenary principles, and it was not till later that the title and position of Râja were acquired by a few fortunate houses to the extreme north and extreme south of their settlements. At the centre, in Faizâbâd, they always remained in a subordinate position.”127