Mathura A Gazetteer-6

MATHURA A GAZETTEER,
edited and compiled by, D.L. DRAKE-BROCKMAN [1911]

DIRECTORY

AIRA KHERA, Tahsil MAHABAN

Aira Khera lies in 27°31'N. and 77°50'E., nearly 4 miles north-east from Raya and 11 miles from Muttra. It is an old township with no arable land attached to it, and is popularly said to be the mother of 360 villages. It is still the recognised centre of eighteen, namely, Aira, Baron, Bhankarpur, Bhura, Bibaoli, Bindu Bulaki, Barahna, Birbal, Gainra, Gaju, Kakarari, Lalpur, Manina Balu, Misri, Nimgaon, Piri, Sabali and Sampat Jogi The founder is said to have been a Pramar Rajput, by name Nain Sen, who himself came from Daharua in this tahsil, but whose ancestors had migrated from Duar in the Deccan. He had four sons among whom he portioned out his property; and they in turn had eighteen sons, who settled the villages mentioned above. The bazar is considered the joint property of the descendants of Rupa, the eldest son of Nain Sen; while the market, which is held on a spot close the bazar on Wednesdays and Saturdays, is the property of the zamindars of the four villages founded by the sons of Sikhan, another son of Nain Sen. The lands of the eighteen villages are all intermixed and are occupied almost exclusively by the Jat community, with the exception of Lalpur which is held by Brahmans, the descendants of the founder's purohit. The old occupants of the place whom Nain Sen dispossessed are said to have been Kalars. Though Nain Sen himself was a Rajput, his des cendants are all reckoned as Jats of the Godha subdivision. This they explain by saying that the new settlers, being unable to secure any better alliances, intermarried with Jat women from Karil in Aligarh, and the children followed the caste of their mothers. The population of Aira Khera has increased of recent years. In 1891 it numbered 1,955 souls and this rose to 2,072 in 1901: of the latter 1,906 were Hindus, 134 were Muhammadans and 32 were of unspecified religions, Brahmans being the numeri cally strongest Hindu caste. The village contains a primary school and a post-office. There is a general meeting for the members of the clan at the festival of the Phut Dol, which is held on the fifth day of the dark half of Chait.

AKOS, Tahsil MAHABAN

This is a large village situated on the banks of the Jumna in 27°17'N. and 77°53'E., at a distance of 18 miles in a direct line from Muttra and of 14 miles from Mahaban by the unmetalled road which leads from Baldeo to Agra. Near the village is situated a curious hill known as the Bhim Tila; and the village lands cover 3,568 acres, the revenue demand being Rs. 6,600. The proprietary rights are owned by Jats and Brahmans; and the population of the village has increased from 2,819 persons in 1891 to 3,193 in 1901. Of the latter number 3,016 were Hindus, 115 Muhammadan and 62 of unspecified religions, Jats being the prin cipal Hindu caste. Market is held every Monday and there is a primary school in the village, while a private ferry plies over the Jumna.

ARING, Tahsil MUTTRA

Aring is a large agricultural village lying in the centre of tahsil Muttra; it is situated in 27°29'N. and 77°32'E., at a dis tance of 12 miles from headquarters on the metalled road from Muttra to Dig in Bharatpur. The name of the place is popularly derived from Aringsaur, a demon slain here by Krishna. Other suggestions are that the name is from the root ar, to hesitate, because the tax which Krishna imposed was here reluc tantly paid; or that arang is the local name for a mart, which Aring has always been, thanks to its favourable situation on the high road between two large towns. Mr. Growse however would derive the name from Arishta-grama, arishta being the original Sanskrit form of ritha, the Hindi name of the soap-berry tree (Sapindus Detergens). Aring is generally accounted one of the 24 Upabans: it has a sacred pond called Kilol Kund, and three small temples dedicated respectively to Baladeva, Bihari-ji and Pipalesvar Mahadeva; but there are no signs of a wood. There are also the ruins of a mud fort built during the last century by one Phunda Ram, a Jat, who held a large tract of territory in jagir under Raja Suraj Mal of Bharatpur. A trigonometrical survey station lies in the fort at an elevation of 670.5 feet above the level of the sea. The upper markstone of the survey is on the vaulted roof of the old fort, and is about 57 feet above the level of the surrounding country. Aring contains a police station, a vernacular secondary school with a primary branch attended by about 100 pupils, a branch post-office and a cattle-pound. A weekly market is held on Sundays. The population in 1901 numbered 4,225 persons, of whom 3,932 were Hindus and 291 Musalmans, and appears to have largely increased of late years for in 1881 it amounted to 3,579 souls. The Agra canal passes close to the site, and is bridged at the point where the road to Dig crosses it. The Hindu inhabitants are for the most part Chamars, Brahmans, Gaurua Rajputs and Jats. For many years Aring was the headquarters of a pargana of the same name; but in 1868 the offices were all transferred to the capital of the district and the parganas of Muttra and Aring were amalgamated. Until 1818 the village was held in jagir by a Kashmiri Pandit named Baba Biswanath. On his death it was resumed and assessed to revenue of Rs. 6,447, settlement being made with the resident Gaurua Rajputs. In 1852 their estate was transferred by auction sale to Seth Gobind Das, who made it part of the endowment of the temple of Rangji at Brindaban. Aring was the scene of a defeat of the Maratha army under Holkar by Lord Lake in October 1804. At the Mutiny rebels marched upon the place with the intention of plundering the treasury, but were stoutly opposed by the zamindars and resident officials, and driven back after a few shots had been fired. Lala Ram Baksh, the hereditary pat wari, who also acted as the Seth's agent, was conspicuous for his loyalty, and subsequently received from the Government a grant of Rs. 1,000, and a quarter of the revenue of the village of Kothra, on the Bharatpur border. Munshi Bhajan Lal, who was tahsil dar at the same time, also received a grant of Rs. 1,200, and smaller rewards were conferred on several other inhabitants of the village, chiefly Brahmans.The avenue of trees extending from Muttra through Aring to Gobardhan was mainly planted by Seth Sukhanand. The village of Aring has an area of 5,459 acres and is assessed to revenue of Rs. 9,995.

ARUA, Tahsil MAT

Arua lies in the south of tahsil Mat about three miles off the metalled road from Raya to Mat, in 27°37'N. and 77°47'E. It is 12 miles by road from Muttra and only 4 miles from Mat. The area of the village covers 4,118 acres and includes a large number of inhabited sites, including the deserted site of Bindrauli. The population has somewhat decreased since 1881 and in 1901 amounted to 3,389 souls, of whom 3,308 were Hindus and 81 were Musalmans. Market is held on Thursdays in Darwa, the largest hamlet, where there is also a primary school. Arua is an old Jat village, but much of the land has been now alienated to Banias of Raya and to Brahmans. The revenue demand amounts to Rs. 9,901. At the time of the Mutiny, Udha, one of the zamindars, was put to death by the people of the next village, Jawara. Hereupon his friends at Arua and Airs Khera assembled a large force for an attack upon Jawara, and in the engagement many lives were lost on both sides. For this and other acts of depredation Arua was fined Rs. 10,000. On the borders of the village is a lake called Man Sarovar, and there are the ruins of two old indigo factories.

AURANGABAD, Tahsil MUTTRA

Aurangabad lies on the metalled road from Agra to Dehli, two miles south of Muttra, in 27°26'N. and 77°45'E. The population in 1901 numbered 2,141 persons, out of which 1,425 were Hindus, 681 Musalmans and 35 of other religions, the prevailing castes being Banias, Brahmans, Jats and Mewatis. A reach of sandy and broken ground, extends from the town to the Jumna, where a bridge-of-boats affords means of communication with Gokul and Mahaban on the opposite bank. On the banks of the river is an extensive garden, and beside the high road are the ruins of a handsome red sandstone mosque built in the time of Aurangzeb. From the name of that monarch the village derives its name: he is said to have made a grant of it to one Bhim Bhoj, a Tomar Rajput, with whose descendants it continued for many years. For sometime previous to 1861 however, it was, held revenue free by a faqir, commonly called Bottle Shah from his bibulous propensities, who was. a grantee of Daulat Rao Sindhia. On his death it was assessed at Rs. 691, but at the present time the revenue is Rs. 699, the total area of the village being 713 acres. The place is frequently, but incorrectly, called Naurangabad. It has also the subsidiary name of Mohanpur, from one Mohan Lal, a Sanadh Brahman and a man of some importance who came from Mat and settled here in the 18th century. Aurangabad is the chief place in Muttra for the manufacture of wicker chairs and couches: and a weekly market is held on Fridays, the articles of traffic being for the most part cotton and thread. The village has a police outpost and a primary school, attended by some 40 boys. For the accommoda tion of the latter Mr. Growse had a handsome and substantial building erected, with pillars and tracery of carved stone, which now forms the most conspicuous ornament of the place.

BACHHGAON, Tahsil MUTTRA

A large agricultural village in 27°24'N. and 77°29'E., close to the Bharatpur border, at a distance of 15 miles from Muttra and 2 miles from Sonkh. The village has a total area of 5,592 acres and is assessed to a revenue demand of Rs. 5,000; but the proprietary rights have for the most part passed out of the hands of the Jat zamindars into those of the Marwari Brahman, Bohra Ram Lal. The predecessors of the Jat com munity were Kirars. The place is said to derive its name from, and to have been the scene of a famous incident in Krishna's life, who, when the jealous god Brahma took away the calves (bachche) from his herd, at once created others to supply their place. The village is only remarkable for its size, the popula tion in 1901 being 3,151 persons, of whom 3,082 were Hindus and 69 were Muhammadans. There is an aided school in the village.

BAJANA, Tahsil MAT

This village is situated in the extreme north of the dis trict in 27°53'N. and 77°41'E. It is distant 33 miles from Muttra, via Jait and Shergarh, and 19 miles from Mat; unmetalled roads connect it with Nohjhil and Shergarh, and with Surir and Mat. Bajana has been from time immemorial occupied by Jats. Many years ago, the three leading men divided it into as many estates, called after their own names, Sultan Patti, Dilu Patti and Siu Patti. These are now practically distinct villages, each with several subordinate hamlets, where most of the proprietors reside, while the old bazar still remains as a common centre, but is mainly occupied by trades people. Bajana once contained a policestation, but this was subsequently reduced to an outpost and finally abolished; and at the present time there are a post-office and primary school in the place. The village, however, is still a market town of some importance, markets being held every Thursday and Saturday, on the former day exclusively for cattle and on the latter for all commodities. Some interest is taken in the neighbourhood in horse and mule-breeding, but the Government stallion stud has been now withdrawn. The combined area of Bajana is 5,457 acres and the revenue demand amounts to Rs. 12,900. Jats are still the chief proprietors, but part of the estate has passed into the hands of Banias. Some of the property which belonged to Umrao Bahadur was confiscated at the Mutiny and conferred on Seth Lakhmi Chand; and the shares of some of the other zamindars were also forfeited because they took part in the assault on Nohjhil fort. The population has increased from 4,427 persons in 1881 to 4,880 persons in 1901, of whom Hindus numbered 4,006 and Muhammadans 106, there being three persons of other religions.

BALDEO, Tahsil MAHABAN

The town of Baldeo lies in 27°24'N. and 77°49'E., on the metalled road from Muttra to Sadabad, at a distance of 10 miles from Muttra and some 5 miles from Mahaban. The place is familiarly called Dauji and is generally known by that name among villagers. The original village was called Rirha and still exists, but only as a mean suburb occupied by the labouring classes; the total area is returned at 458 acres. Baldeo contains a police station, sub-post-office, primary school attended by over 100 boys, and cattle-pound; while a short distance away on the Sadabad road is an inspection bungalow maintained by the district board. The town has been administered since 1859 under Act XX of 1856. Income is raised by the usual house-tax and averages some Rs. 1,500 per annum. It is expended in the maintenance of some town police, a small staff of sweepers for conservancy, and simple improvements. The population has increased of late years, for in 1881 it numbered 2,835 persons. This rose to 3,253 in 1891, and at the last enumeration in 1901, the inhabitants were returned at 3,367 souls, of whom 3,148 were Hindus and 141 were Musalmans. The prevailing Hindu castes are Jats, Banias and Brahmans.

The town derives all its celebrity from the famous temple of Balaram or Baladeva, Krishna's elder brother. This is about 150 years old, but, despite its popularity among Hindus, it is neither handsome nor well-appointed. The temple itself, built by Seth Shiam Das of Delhi, stands at the back of one inner court, and on each of its three disengaged sides has an arcade of three bays with broad flanking piers. On each of these three sides a door gives access to the calla, which is surmounted by a squat pyramidal tower. In addition to the principal figure, Baladeva, who is generally very richly dressed and bedizened with jewels, it contains another life-sized statue, supposed to represent his spouse, Revati. In an adjoining court is shown the small vaulted chamber which served the god as a residence for the first century after his epiphany. The precincts of the temple include as many as eleven cloistered quadrangles, where accommodation is provided for pilgrims and the resident priests. Each court, or kunj as it is called, bears the name of its founder as follows:—the Kunj of Rashk Lal of Agra and Lucknow, 1817 A.D.; of Bachharaj, Bania, of Hathras, 1825; of Nawal Karan, Bania, of Agra, 1768; of Bhim Sen and Hulas Rai, Banias, of Muttra, 1828; of Das Mal, Khattri, of Agra, 1801; of Bhattacharya of Jaipur, 1794; of Gopal, Brahman, of Jaipur; of Chiman Lal, of Muttra, 1778; of Jadu Ram, Khattri, of Agra, 1768; of Chunna, Halwai, of Bharatpur, 1808; and of Puran Chand, Pachauri, of Mahaban, 1801.

Adjoining the temple is a brick built tank, over 80 yards square, called variously Kshir Sagar, the "Sea of Milk," Kshir Kund, or Balbhadr Kund. It is in a dilapidated condition, and the surface of the water is always covered with a thick green scum which, however, does not deter the pilgrims either from drinking or bathing in it. Here it is said that Gosain Gokul Nath was warned in a vision that a god lay concealed. Immediate search was made, and the statue of Baladeva, that has ever since been regarded as the tutelary divinity of the place, was revealed to the adoring gaze of the assembled multitude. Attempts were made to remove it to Gokul; but as every cart broke down, either from the weight of the stone or the reluctance of the god to change his abode, a shrine was erected for his reception on the spot, and an Ahivasi of Bhartiya, by name Kalyan, was con stituted guardian. From his two sons Jamuna Das and Musiya or Sukadeva are descended the Pandes who now manage the temple. They have acquired considerable landed property, besides the old village of Rirha. This brings in a substantial income but forms only a small part of their wealth, for the offer ings at the shrine in the course of the year are estimated to yield a net profit of about Rs. 30,000. The Kshir Sagar and all the fees paid by pilgrims bathing in it belong not to the temple Pandes, but to a community of Sanadh Brahmans. The temple Pandes, however, assert rights to the tank, and there is a standing quarrel between the two parties which has caused some litigation. Near the tank is a shrine dedicated by Bihari Lai, Bohra, of Mursan, in 1803 to the honour of the god Harideva, and two stone chhatris in memory of the Pandes, Harideva and Jagannath. Two annual fairs are held at Baldeo, one on the sixth day of the light half of Bhadon, commonly called Deo Chath, the other on the full moon of Aghan; but there is probably not a single day in the course of the whole year in which the temple courts are not occupied by at least one hundred pilgrims, drawn from all parts of northern India. A charitable dole of one anna apiece is given to every applicant. The Pandes and their families have now multiplied exceedingly, and the annual cost of their mainten ance must be considerable. Ordinarily there is a division of the profits among the shareholders at the end of every three months: an allotment is made into twelve portions, that being the number of the principal subdivisions of the clan, and then each subdivision makes, a separate distribution among its own members.The Village Sanitation Act (United Provinces Act II of 1892) is in force in the town.

BARAULI, Tahsil MAHABAN

An agricultural village in 27°20'N. and 77°53'E., on the unmetalled road from Baldeo to Agra. It is 11 miles distant from Mahaban and 17 miles from Muttra. This place is one of no importance: market is held on Sundays and Wednesdays, and there is a primary school in the village. The population has risen from 2,158 persons in 1891 to 2,317 in 1901; of the lat ter 2,123 were Hindus, 180 Muhammadans, and 14 of other religions.

BARSANA, Tahsil CHHATA

Barsana lies in 27°39'N. and 77°23,E., at a distance of 31 miles north-west from Muttra and 10 miles south-west from Chhata. In 1901 it had a population of 3,542 persons, compared with one of 2,773 in 1881; and of the whole number 3,291 were Hindus, 248 Musalmans and three persons were of other religions. The principal Hindu caste is that of Rajputs. The village has a total area of 2,157 acres and is assessed to a revenue of Rs. 3,254; the proprietor being Raja Sarat Chandra Sen, the heir of the Lala Babu. There are a police station, cattle-pound, Post-office and school in the town; and the following description taken from Mr. Growse's memoir supplies all the available information regarding the place. "Barsana, according to modern Hindu belief the home of Krishna's favourite mistress Radha, is a town which enjoyed a brief period of great prosperity about the middle of the last century. It is built at the foot and on the slope of a hill, originally dedicated to the god Brahma, which rises abruptly from the plain near the Bharatpur border of the Chhata tahsil to a height of some 200 feet at its extreme point, and runs in a south-east direction for about a quarter of a mile. The hill is still to a limited extent known as Brahma-ka-pahar (Brahma's hill); and hence it may he inferred with certainty that Barsana is a corruption of the Sanskrit compound Brahma Sanu, which bears the same meaning. The four prominent peaks of the hill are regarded as emblematic of the four-faced divinity, and are crowned with different buildings, the first with the group of temples dedicated to Larliji, the other three with buildings known as the Man Mandir, the Dangarh, and the Mor-Kutti. A second hill of less extent and elevation completes the amphitheatre in which the town is set, and the space between the two ranges gradually contracts to a narrow path which barely allows a single traveller on foot to pass between the sloping rocks on either side. This pass is famous as the Sankari Khor, literally the narrow opening, and is the scene of a fair in the month of Bhadon (August-September), often attended by as many as 100,000 people. The crowds divide according to their sex and cluster about the rocks round two little shrines erected on either side of the ravine for the temporary reception of figures of Radha and Krishna, and indulge to their heart's content in all the licentious banter appropriate to the occasion. At the other mouth of the pass is a deep dell between the two high peaks of the Man Mandir and the Mor-Kutti, with a masonry tank in the centre of a dense thicket called the Gahwar ban; and the principal feature in the diversions of the day is the throwing of sweetmeats by the better class of visitors, seated on the terraces of the "Peacock Pavilion" above, among the multitudes that throng the margin of the tank some 150 feet below.

The summit of Brahma's hill is crowned by a series of temples in honour of Larliji, a local title of Radha, meaning the beloved. These were all erected at intervals within the last 250 years, and-now form a connected mass of buildings with a lofty wall enclosing the court in which they stand. Each of the successive shrines was on a somewhat grander scale than its predecessor, and was for a time honoured with the presence of the divinity; but even the last and largest is an edifice of no special preten sions, though seated as it is on the very brow of the rock and seen in conjunction with the earlier buildings, it forms an imposing feature in the landscape to the spectator from the plain below. A long flight of stone steps, broken about half way by a temple in honour of Radha's grandfather, Mahaban, leads down from the summit to the town, which consists almost entirely of magnificent mansions all in ruins and lofty but crumbling walls now enclosing vast desolate areas which once were busy courts and markets or secluded pleasure-grounds. All date from the time of Rup Ram, a Katara Brahman, who, having acquired great reputation as a pundit in the earlier part of last century, became family priest (purohit) to the Raja of Bharatpur, Sindhia and Holkar, and was enriched by those princes with the most lavish donations, the whole of which he appears to have expended on the embellishment of Barsana and other sacred places within the limits of Braj, his native country. Before his time Barsana, if inhabited at all, was a mere hamlet of the adjoining village Unchagaon, which now under its Gujar landlords is a mean and miserable place, though it still boasts the remains of a fort and an ancient and well-endowed temple, dedicated to Baladeva.

Rup Ram was the founder of the now superseded temples of Larliji with the stone staircase up the side of the hill, and also constructed the largest market-place in the town with as many, it is said, as 64 walled gardens, a princely mansion for his own residence, with several chapels and other courts and pavilions, one of which, a handsome arched building of carved stone, has been occupied by the Government as the police station for several years. Three cenotaphs (chhattri) commemorating Rup Ram himself and two of his immediate relatives, stand by the side of a large stone tank, with broad flights of steps and flanking towers, which he restored and brought into its present shape. This is reputed sacred and commonly called Bhanokhar, that is, the tank of Brikhbhan, Radha's reputed father; and in connection with it is a smaller tank, called after the name of her mother, Kirat. On the margin of the Bhanokhar is a pleasure house in three storeys known as the Jai-Mahal, supported on a series of vaulted colonnades opening on to the water, for the convenience of the ladies of the family, who could thus bathe in perfect seclusion, as the two tanks and the palace are all enclosed in one courtyard by a lofty bastioned and battlemented wall with arched gateways. Besides these works Rup Ram also faced with stone ghats the sacred lake called Prem Sarovar, opposite which is a walled garden and elegant monument in the form of a Greek cross to his brother Hemraj; and on the opposite side of the town he constructed another large masonry tank for the convenience of a hamlet which he settled and called after his own name, Rup Nagar.

Contemporary with Rup Ram two other wealthy families were resident at Barsana and his rivals in magnificence, the head of the one family being Mohan Ram, a Lavania Brahman, and of the other Lalji, a Tantia Thakur. It is said that the latter was by birth merely a common labourer, who went off to Lucknow to make his fortune. There he became first a harkara, then a jamadar, and eventually a prime favourite at court. Towards the close of his life he begged permission to return to his native place and there leave some permanent memorial of the royal favour. The Nawab not only granted the request, but further presented him with a carte blanche on the state treasury for the prosecution of his design. Besides the stately mansion, now much dilapidated, he constructed a large baoli well, still in excellent preservation, and two wells sunk at great expense in sandy tracts where previously all irrigation had been impracticable. The sacred tank at the outskirts of the town, called Priya Kund or Piri Pokhar, was faced with stone by the Lavanias, who are further commemorated by the ruins of the vast and elaborate mansion where they resided and by two elegant stone cenotaphs at the foot of the hill. They held office under the Raja of Bharatpur and their present representative, Ram Narain, was formerly tahsildar in the territory.

Barsana had scarcely been built when by the fortune of war it was destroyed beyond all hopes of restoration. In 1774 A.D. the Jats, who had advanced upon Delhi in support of the cause of Zabita Khan, and in consequence of ill success were retiring to their own country, were met at Hodal in Gurgaon by Najaf Khan hastening up from Agra. Dislodged from their position they fell back upon Kotban and Kosi, which they occupied for nearly a fortnight, and then finally withdrew towards Dig; but, at Barsana were overtaken by the wazir and a pitched battle ensued. The Jat infantry, 5,000 strong, were commanded by Sumru, who had first taken service under Suraj Mal, and was still with his son, Nawal Singh, the then Raja of Bharatpur. The ranks of the imperialists were broken by his gallant attack, and the Jats, feeling assured of victory, were following in reckless disorder when the enemy, rallying from their sudden panic, turned upon their pursuers, who were too scattered to offer any solid resistance, and totally routed them. They contrived, however, to effect a retreat to Dig, while the town of Barsana was given ever to plunder, and the stately mansions so recently erected there were reduced to their present state of ruin in the search for hidden treasure. Nawal Singh died some 20 days after the bettle, but whether in consequence of wounds there received is not certainly known. He was succeeded by his brother Ranjit Singh, who found his dominions reduced to the fort of Bharatpur with an income of 9 lakhs from the adjacent territory. Barsana never recovered from this blow, and in 1812 sustained a further misfortune when the Gaurua Thakurs, its zamindars, being in circumstances of difficulty and probably distrustful of the stability of British rule then only recently established, were mad enough to transfer their whole estate to the Lala Babu for the paltry sum of Rs. 602 and the condition of holding land on rather more favourable terms than other tenants."

BATHAN KALAN, Tahsil CHHATA

The large village of Bathan Kalan lies in 27°46,N. and 77°24'E., 30 miles north-west of Muttra, and three miles south-west of Kosi. Combined with Dhanot Khera and Kokilaban, it has a total area of 5,248 acres and a population which, in 1901, numbered 3,215 persons, 3,134 being Hindus, 73 Musalmans and eight of other religions. Close by lies the village of Bathan khurd with an area of 1,272 acres and a population of 1,657 persons. Both are inhabited for the most part by Jats, and as they are closely connected, they can conveniently be treated together. According to popular belief, the name Bathan is derived from the circumstance that Balaram here "sat down" (baithen) to wait for his brother Krishna; but the word probably is really descriptive of the natural features of the spot, bathan being still employed in some parts of India to denote a pasture-ground for cattle. On the outskirts of the village is a large tank with a stone ghat built by Rap Ram, the Katara of Barsana; it is called Balbhadr-kund and this name has either occasioned or serves to perpetuate the belief that Balaram was the eponymous hero of the place. Hare, on the third day of the dark half of Chait, is held the Holanga Mala when between 15,000 and 16,000 persons assemble, and a sham-fight takes place between the women of Bathan, armed with clubs, and the men of Jau, who defend them-selves with tamarisk (jhau) branches. At a distance of two miles from Bathan, between two smaller groves, each called Padar Ganga, the one in Bathan and the other in Jau, is Kokilaban, the most celebrated in Hindu poetry of all the woods of Braj. It is 212 bighas in extent, the trees becoming thicker towards the centre, where a pretty natural lake spreads cool and clear. The latter is connected with a masonry tank of very eccentric configuration, also the work of Rup Ram. On the margin of the tank are several shrines and pavilions for the accommodation of pilgrims, who assemble here to the number of 10,000 on the tenth day of the light half of Bhadon, when the Ras Lila, is celebrated. There is also a walled garden planted by a Seth of Mirzapur, which is rapidly going to ruin; and adjoining this there is a barahdari or pavilion constructed in 1870 by a Kosi Bania called Nem Ji. A fair is held in the grove every Saturday and a larger one on every full moon, when the principal diversion consists in seeing the immense swarms of monkeys fight for the grain that is thrown among them. Between Kokilaban and the village is another holy place, called Kabirban.

At Bathan Khurd a curious ridge of rock, called Charan Pahar, crops up above the ground, the stone being of precisely the same character as at Barsana and Nandgaon. This, it is said, was one of the places where Krishna most delighted to stop and play his flute, and many of the stones are still supposed to bear the impress of his feet, charan. This hill is of very insignificant dimensions, having an average height of only some 20 or 30 feet, and a total length of at most a quarter of a mile. Both Bathan Kalan and Bathan Khurd are owned by Jat commu nities in bhaiyachara tenure, the revenue demand on the former being Rs. 8,442 and on the latter Rs. 3,576. Bathan Kalan has a small primary school.

BERI, Tahsil Muttra

This is a large agricultural estate in 27°19'N. and 77°41'E., ying between the Agra canal and the Cawnpore-Achnera railway, four miles west of Farah. It is 11 miles distant from the civil station of Muttra. In 1881 the village had a population of 2,278 souls and in 1901 the number had increased to 2,322, of whom 1,982 were Hindus, 309 were Musalmans and 31 were of other religions. Beri has an area of 1,899 acres and is assessed to a demand of Rs. 3,422, the present proprietor being Pandit Ksilash Nath Kashmiri. At the Mutiny the village was held by a body of Rajput zamindars, but was confiscated for rebellion and conferred on Rao Mahendra Singh of Poona and Agra. It was subsequently purchased by Pandit Kashi Nath, from whom it descended to its present owner. There are a post-office and primary school in the place, and market is held on Tuesdays in each week.

BHARTIYA, Tahsil MAHABAN

This is a large village, lying on the boundary of tahsil Sadabad, in 27°23'N. and 77°55'E., 16 miles from Muttra city and 10 miles from Mahaban, about two miles south of the metal-led road to Sadabad. The village has a total area of 1,351 acres and is assessed to a revenue demand of Rs. 3,896, the zamindars being Jats and Brahmans. The population in 1901 numbered 2,318 souls, of whom 2,256 were Hindus and 62 were Muham­madans. There is a primary school in the place. A weekly market is held on Mondays.

BISAWAR, Tahsil SADABAD

Bisawar is a large village on the west of Sadabad tahsil, a little over a mile south of the metalled road from Muttra to Sa dabad. It lies in 27°23'N. and 77°56'E., at a distance of eight miles from Sadabad and 16 miles from the civil station of Muttra. The area of the village is 4,495 acres and there is a large number of subsidiary hamlets, the revenue demand being Rs. 11,782. A large proportion of the total area of the village was, in 1829, ghana or woodland, but this has been gradually brought under cultivation and very little now remains. The village is said to have been founded as early as the eleventh century by one Ram Ben, a Jadon Rajput from Mahaban; but his descendants have for many generations been reckoned as Jats of the Hags sub-division and they assumed the title of chaudhri. The village is still owned for the most part by Jats, but Brahmans and Banias have also obtained shares. The population is large, and has increased from 4,774 in 1881 to 5,443 in 1901; of the latter 5,029 were Hindus, 373 Muhammadans and 41 of other religions. Jats are the numerically strongest Hindu caste. Bisawar has a pri mary school and a large market is held every Friday in it. There are two temples and a Muhammadan shrine in the place. The latter is in honour of a faqir known as the Bara Miyans, and was first established in 1855. It is visited by a considerable number of people every Wednesday and Saturday throughout the year, except in the months of Pus and Sawan.

BRINDABAN, Tahsil MUTTRA

The celebrated town of Brindaban is situated in 27°33'N. and 77°42'E., on the banks of the Jumna, nine miles north of the district capital. The river makes at this point an eccentric bend and the town stands on a peninsula, washed on three sides by the stream. The name of the place is, according to Mr. Growse, derived from an obvious physical feature and means "the tulsi grove", brinda and tulsi being synonymous terms for the aromatic herb Ocymum Sanctum. The place is connected with Muttra by a metalled road; and there is a branch line of rail from Muttra cantonment station on the Cawnpore-Achnera railway. The high road from Muttra to Brindaban passes through two villages, Jaisinghpur and Ahaliaganj, and about half way crosses a deep ravine by a bridge, which, as the inscrip tion on it shows, was built in sambat 1890 (1833 A.D.) by Balla Bai, the daughter of Madhoji Sindhia. Close by is a masonry tank, built in 1872 by Lala Kishan Lal, Dhusar, a banker of Dehli. This road is of comparatively recent construc­tion, for the old road kept much closer to the Jumna river. For the first two miles out of Brindaban its course is still marked by lines of trees and several works of considerable magnitude. The first of these is a large garden surrounded by a masonry wall and supplied with water from a distance by long aqueducts. It was constructed by Kushal, a wealthy Seth of Gujerat, who also founded one of the largest temples in the city of Muttra. A little beyond, on the opposite side of the way, in a piece of waste ground which was once an orchard, is a large and handsome baoli of red sandstone with a flight of 57 steps leading down to the level of the water. This was the gift of Ahalia Bai, the celebrated Maratha queen of Indore, who died in 1795. Further on, in the hamlet of Akrur, on the verge of a cliff overlooking a wide expanse of alluvial land is the temple of Bhatrond, a solitary tower containing an image of Bihari Ji. Opposite is a large garden belonging to the Seths, and, on the roadway that runs between, a fair, called Bhatmela, is held on the full moon of Kairtik. The word Bhatrond is popularly connected with an incident in Krishna's life, which the fair commemorates. This is that he and his brother Balaram, having one day forgotten to supply themselves with provisions before leaving home, had to borrow a meal of rice (bhat) from some Brahmans' wives.

There are within the limits of Brindaban municipality about 1,000 temples, but this number includes many which are, properly speaking, only private chapels. There are thirty-two ghats, constructed by various benefactors, but only two tanks of reputed sanctity. The first of these is the Brahm Kund, at the back of the Seths' temple, now in a ruinous condition; and the other, called Gobind Kund, is in an out of the way spot near the Muttra road. It was originally merely a natural pond, but about 1875 was enclosed on all four sides with masonry walls and flights of steps, at a cost of Rs. 30,000, by Chaudhrani Kali Sundari from Rajshahi in Bengal. To these may be added as a third a Masonry tank in what is called the Kewarban. This is a grove of pipal, gular and kadamb trees, which stands a little off the Muttra road near the turn to the Madan Mohan temple. It is a halting place in the Banjatra, and the name is popularly said to be a corruption of kin-vari, " who lit it?," with reference to the forest conflagration, or davanal, of which the traditional scene is more commonly laid at Bhadraban on the opposite bank of the river There is here a small temple of Davanal Behari with a cloistered courtyard for the reception of pilgrims. . Adjoining the ban is a large walled garden belonging to the Tehri Raja, which has long been abandoned on account of the badness of the water there are also some fifty chhattras or dole houses in the town for the distribution of alms to indigent humanity.

TEMPLES

The first shrine erected at Brindaban was one in honour of the eponymous goddess Brinda Devi. It is said to have stood in the Seva Kunj, now a large walled garden with a masonry tank near the Ras Mandal, but no traces remain of it. The fame of the Gosains who built it spread so rapidly that in 1570 the emperor Akbar was induced to pay them a visit. He was taken blindfold into the Nidhban, where so marvellous a vision was revealed to him that he was compelled to acknowledge the place as holy ground, and gave cordial support to the attendant Rajas when they expressed their wish to erect a series of buildings more worthy of the local divinity. The four temples commenced in honour of this event bear the titles of Gobind Deva, Gopinath, Jugal Kishor and Madan Mohan.

THE GOBIND DEO TEMPLE

The first named is not only the finest of this particular series, but cne of the most impressive edifices raised by Hindu art in northern India. The body of the building is in the form of a Greek cross, the nave being one hundred feet in length and the breadth across the transepts the same. The central compartment is sur mounted by a dome of singularly graceful proportions; and the four arms of the cross are roofed by a waggon vault of pointed form, constructed of fine radiating arehes as in Gothic cathedrals. The walls have an average thickness of ten feet and are pierced in two stages, the upper stage being a regular triforium. This triforium is a reproduction of Muhammedan design, while the work above and below it is purely Hindu. At the east end of the nave there is a small narthex, fifteen feet deep; and at the west end, between two niches and incased in a rich canopy of sculpture, a square headed doorway leads into the choir, a chamber some twenty feet square. Beyond this was the sacrarium, flanked on either side by a lateral chapel.; each of these three cells being of the same dimensions as the choir and Iike it vaulted by a lofty dome. It would seem that, according to the original design, there were to have been five towers, one over the central dome and the other four covering respectively the choir, the sacrarium, and the two chapels. The sacrarium has been utterly razed to the ground, the chapel towers were never completed, and that over the choir, though the most perfect, has still lost some of its upper stages. The loss of the towers and of the lofty arcaded parapet that surmounted the walls has terribly marred the effect of the exterior and given it a heavy stunted appearance, while, as a further disfigurement, a plain masonry wall was at one time run up along the top of the centre of the dome. So much of a mutilated inscription at the west end of the wall as can be deciphered records the fact that the temple was built in sambat 1647 or A.D. 1590 under the direction of two gurus, Rupa and Sanatana, by Raja Man Singh of Jaipur, a famous governor in the days of Akbar. In the reign of Aurangzeb, owing to a fear of desecration at the hands of that monarch, the image of the god inside the temple was removed to Jaipur, and the Gosain of the temple at that place has ever since been regarded as head of the endowment. From that time onwards the building was allowed to fall into disrepair and many portions became ruinous. Mr. Growse, when collector of the district, tried ineffectually to enlist the sympathies of the Government in its restoration; but the Maharaja of Jaipur generously supplied Rs. 5,000 for the purpose, on the facts being brought to his knowledge. Work was begun in August 1873: the obtrusive wall on the top of the dome was demolished, the interior was cleared of several unsightly party-walls, and all the debris was removed which had accumulated round the base of the plinth to the height of eight feet or more and entirely concealed the handsomely moulded plinth. Many of the houses, too, which had been allowed to crowd the precincts of the temple were removed. At the same time a domed and pillared chhattri of very hand-some design, which stood on the south side of the choir and was erected in 1636 A.D. by the daughter-in-law of Rana Amar Singh of Mewar, was taken down and re-erected on the platform that marks the site of the old sacrarium. These works had more than exhausted the money provided by the Maharaja of Jaipur, but in 1875, Sir John Strachey, Lieutenant-Governor of the North-Western Provinces, came to the help of Mr. Growse with a liberal grant of money from provincial revenues, and thorough repairs were carried out under the personal superintendence of the latter before March 1877, at a total cost of Rs. 38,365. The fixed estate of the temple is small, consisting only of one village in Jaipur, another in Alwar and some property in Brindaban, which has been diminished by encroachment; but the income is supplemented by votive offerings and amounts to about Rs. 20,000 a year. The temple, however, is now regularly kept in repair by the Government, the work being entrusted to the Public Works department.

THE MADANMOHAN TEMPLE

The Madan Mohan temple stands at the upper end of the town on a high cliff near the Kali Mardan, or as it is commonly called, the Kalidah ghat. It is said to have been built by a merchant from Multan in the Punjab, a Khattri by caste, named Ram Das, but more familiarly known as Kapuri. As he was coming down the river with a boatload of merchandise bound for Agra, he stuck on a sand bank near the Kali Mardan ghat and, after trying in vain for three days to get of, he determined to discover the local divinity and implore his assistance. So he came on shore, climbed the Duhsasan hill and there found Sanatana, who was living in a little hut with the image of Madan Mohan. Sanatana told him to address his prayer to Madan Mohan: this the merchant did, and his boat immediately began to float. When he had sold his goods at Agra he came and brought their price to Sanatana, who told him to build a temple with it. The temple, as it now stands, consists of a nave fifty-Seven feet long, with a choir of twenty feet square at the west end and a sanctuary of the same dimensions beyond. The nave would seem to have been only about twenty-two feet high, but its vaulted roof has entirely disappeared and the upper part of the choir has also been destroyed. That surmounting the sacrarium is a plain octagon of curvilinear outline tapering towards the summit. Attached to its south side is a tower-crowned chapel of similar character but much more highly enriched, the whole of its exterior surface being covered with sculptured panels. The nave, ruinous as it is, was evidently to a great extent rebuilt in compara tively recent times, the old materials being utilized as far as possible, but when they ran short, the place of stone being supplied by brick. In 1875 the appearance of the temple was greatly improved by Mr. Growse, who had the ground round the plinth reduced and a number of buildings inside the nave and in the front of the chapel removed. The original image of Madan Mohan, which is said to have been given to Sanatana, is now at Karauli, where Raja Gopal Singh, who reigned from 1725 to 1757 A.D., built a new temple for its reception after he had obtained it from his brother-in-law, the Raja of Jaipur.

TEMPLE OF GOPINATH

The temple of Gopinath, which is possibly the earliest of the series, is said to have been built by Raesil Ji, a grandson of the founder of the Shaikhawat branch of the Kachhwaha Rajputs. He distinguished himself so greatly in the repulse of an Afghan invasion that the emperor Akbar bestowed on him the title of darbari, with a grant of land and the command of 1,250 horses. The temple corresponds very closely both in style and dimensions with that of Madan Mohan, and has a similar chapel attached to the south side of the sacrarium. It is, however, in a far more ruinous condition, the nave having entirely disappeared, the three towers levelled with the roof, and the entrance gate way of the courtyard being much dilapidated. The special feature of the building is a curious arcade of three bracket arches, serving apparently no construetural purpose but merely added as an ornamental screen to the south wall, The terrace on which this arcade stands has a carved stone front, which was only uncovered in the course of some repairs carried out by Mr. Growse. The choir arch is of handsome design elaborately decorat ed with arabesque sculptures, but the north side is blocked by a modern temple built about the year 1821 by a Bengali Kayasth, Nand Kumar Ghose.

TEMPLE OF JUGAL KISHOR

The temple of Jugal Kishor, the fourth of the old series, stands at the lower end of the town near the Kesi ghat. Its construction is referred to the year sambat 1684 or 1627 A.D., in the reign of Jahangir, and the founder's name is preserved as Non Karan: he is said to have been a Chauhan Rajput. The choir, which is slightly larger than in the other examples, being twenty-five feet square, has the principal entrance at the east end, but is peculiar in having also, both north and south, a small doorway under a hood supported on eight closely-set brackets carved into the form of elephants. The nave has been com pletely destroyed.

TEMPLE OF RADHA BALLABH

The temple of Radha Ballabh is somewhat later than the series of four already described, one of the pillars in the front giving the date of its foundation as sambat 1683 or 1626 A.D. It was built by a Kayasth named Sundar Das, who held the appointment of treasurer at Dehli; he was a disciple of Braj Chand, the ancestor of the present Gosains of the temple and the son of the reformer Hari Vans, the founder of the Radha ballabhi sect. The ground plan of the temple is much the same as that of Harideva at Gobardhan and the work is of the same Character but carried out on a larger scale. The nave has an eastern facade, thirty-four feet broad, which is in three stages, the upper and the lower Hindu, and the one between them purely Muhammadan in character. The temple in fact is of special architectural interest as the last example of the early eclectic style. The interior is a fine vaulted hall, measuring sixty-three feet by twenty feet, with a double tier of openings north and south, those in the lower storey having brackets and architraves and those above being Muhammadan arches as in the middle storey of the front. The actual shrine or cella was demolished by Aurangzeb and only the plinth remains, on which a modern room has been built.

MODERN TEMPLES

Of the modern temples five claim special notice. The earliest as regards time of erection is the temple of Krishna Chandrama, built about the year 1810, at a cost of 25 lakhs by the wealthy Bengali Kayasth, Krishna Chandra Sen, better known as the Lala Babu. It stands in a large courtyard, which is laid out as a garden and is enclosed by a lofty wall of solid masonry, with an arched gateway at either end. The building is of quadrangular form, one hundred and sixty feet in length with a front central compartment of three arches and a lateral colonnade of five bays reaching on either side towards the cella. The Workmanship throughout is of excellent character.

TEMPLE OF RANG JI

By far the largest of the modern temples is that founded by Seths Gobind Das and Radha Krishn, brothers of Seth Lakhmi Chand. It is dedicated to Rang Ji or Sri Ranga Nath, that being the special name of Vishnu most affected by Ramanuja, the foun der of the Sri Sampradaya. It is built in the Madras style in accordance with plans supplied by their guru, Swami Rang acharya. The works were commenced in 1845 and completed in 1851 at a cost of 45 lakhs of rupees. The outer walls measure 773 feet in length by 440 in breadth, and enclose a fine tank and garden in addition to the actual temple-court. This latter has lofty gate towers or gopuras, covered with a profusion of coarse sculpture. In front of the god,is erected a pillar, or dhvaja stambha, of copper gilt, sixty feet in height, and also sunk some twenty-four feet more below the surface of the ground: this alone cost Rs. 10,000. The principal or western entrance of the outer court is surmounted by a pavilion, ninety-three feet high, con structed in the Muttra style after the design of a native artist. A little to one side of the main entrance is a detached shed, in which the god's rath or carriage is kept. It is an enormous wooden tower in several stages, with monstrous effigies at the corners, and is brought out only ones a year in the month of Chait during the festival of the Brahmotsav. This Meta lasts for ten days, on. each of which the god is taken in state from the temple along the road, a distance of about 700 yards, to a garden where a pavilion has been erected for his reception. The procession is always attended with torches, music and incense, and some military display is contributed by the Raja of Bharatpur.T.On the day when the rath is used, the image of the god composed of eight metals, is seated in the centre of the car with attendant Brahmans on either side to fan it with chauris. The cars dragged with the help of ropes to the garden, and at night there is a grand display of fireworks. On other days, when the rath is not used, the god is borne now on a palki, a richly gilt tabernacle, called punya kothi, a throne (Sinhasan) or a tree, generally a kadamb or the tree of Paradise (kalpa-vriksha); now on some demi-god, as the sun or moon, Garura, Hanuman or Sesha; now again on some animal, as a horse or elephant. The ordinary cost of one of these celebrations is about Rs. 5,000, while the annual expenses of the whole establishment amount to no less than Rs. 60,000. Every day 500 of the Sri Vaishnava sect are fed at the temple, and every morning up to ten o'clock a dole of flour is given to anyone of any denomination who choses to apply for it.

TEMPLE OF RADHA RAMAN

The temple of Radha Raman was completed about 1876. If was founded by Sah Kundan Lal of Lucknow, who built it on a design suggested by the modern secular buildings of that city. The temple itself is constructed of the most costly mate rials and fronted with a colonnade of spiral marble pillars, each shaft being of a single piece. Ten lakhs of rupees are said to have been spent in its construction.

TEMPLE OF RADHA INDRA KISHOR

In striking contrast to the tasteless edifice of Radha Raman is the temple of Radha Indra Kishor, built by Rani Indrajit Kunwar, widow of Het Ram, a Brahman zamindar of Tikari near Gaya. It was six years in the building, and was completed at the end of 1871, at a cost of three lakhs. It is a square of seventy feet divided into three aisles of five bays each, with a fourth space of equal dimensions for the reception of the god. The sikhara is surmounted with a copper kalas or final, heavily gilt, which alone cost Rs. 5,000.

TEMPLE OF RADHA GOPAL

The temple of Radha Gopal was built by the Maharaja of Gwalior under the direction of his guru, Brahmachari Giridhari Das. It was opened for religious service in 1860 and had then cost four lakhs of rupees to build, and an entrance gateway was subsequently added at an additional outlay. The interior is an exact counterpart of an Italian church: it consists of a nave feet fifty-eight long, with four aisles, two on either side, a sacrarium twenty-one feet in depth and a narthex of the same dimensions as entrance.

To this list may be added a large temple now being built by the Maharaja of Jaipur and still in an incomplete condition. It lies on the Muttra road, about three-quarters of a mile from the town of Brindraban. There are in Brindaban no secular buildings of any great antiquity. The oldest is the court, or ghera as it is called, of Sawai Jai Singh, the founder of Jaipur, who made Brindaban an occasional residence during the time that he was governor of the province of Agra (1721-1728 A.D.). It is a large walled enclosure with a pavilion at one end consisting of two aisles divided into five bays by piers of coupled columns of red sand-stone. The river front has a succession of ghats reaching for a distance of about a mile and a half. The one highest up the stream is the Kali Mardan ghat with the kadamb tree from which Krishna plunged into the water to encounter the great. Serpent Kaliya: and the lowest at the other end is Kesi ghat, where he slew the equine demon of that name. Near the latter are two handsome mansions built by the Ranis Kishori and Lachhmi, consorts of Rajas Ranjit Singh and Randhir Singh of Bharatpur; and a little lower down the river front are the kunjs mansions built by Thakur Badan Singh, the father of Raja Suraj Mal, the first Raja of Bharatpur, and by Gangs, the queen of Suraj Mal.

Brindaban was constituted a municipality in 1866: details regarding the board, its income and expenditure have already been given in Chapter IV. Previous to that year the town is said to have been exceedingly dirty and ill kept; but improve- ment rapidly set in soon after: many of the streets have been paved or metalled, and the surface water is now passed off by side drains. The general health of the inhabitants is good, but the death-rate is always high owing to the number of persons, especially Bengalis, who come to Brindaban in order to die on holy ground. The water, as is usually the case near the Jumna, is brackish, though there are plenty of wells, and most people use the water of the river. The population has slightly increased of late years: in 1872 it numbered 20,350 and in 1881 it was 21,467. At the last enumeration in 1901, the population was returned at 22,717 persons, of whom 10,364 were females. Clas sified according to religions there were 21,088 Hindus, 1,409 Musalmans, 156 Christians, 40 Jains and 24 persons of unspecified religions. There are no manufactures in the town, but considerable quantities of plain cloth are imported into it and are there stamped with patterns. Flannel called loi is also brought from Marwar and Bikanir and skilfully repaired by the local tailors, who are chiefly of the Bania and Bairagi castes. The chief imports into the town consist of grain, refined and unrefined sugar, ghi and other articles of food and drink.

Brindaban has a first-class police station, post-office, registra tion office, second-class branch dispensary, Anglo-vernacular middle school, a primary school for boys and a school for girls. The dispensary was built in 1868, and stands outside the town beyond the municipal office and police station: near it is the Municipal inspection bungalow. The Anglo-vernacular school is embellished with a pillared front; the building was completed in 1868 at a cost of Rs. 3,710, which included a donation of Rs. 500 from Swami Rangachariya.

HISTORY

Though Brindaban is mentioned in all the Puranas as one of the chief tirthas, or places of pilgrimage of Braj, it is probable that for many centuries it was merely a wild, uninhabited jungle. In the latter half of the 16th century several holy men from different parts of India, of whom the two most famous were named Rupa and Sanatana, made it their abode, and by their rigid asceticism acquired a great repution both for themselves and for the locality. The foundation of the chief temples dates, as already noticed, from Akbar's visit in A.D. 1570. There was a mint established here by Daulat .Rao Sindhia in 1786, from which the street called Taksalwali Gali derives its name. When the Jats were in possession of the country they transferred the mint to Bharatpur, where what are called Brindabani rupees are still coined: they are especially used at weddings and are valued at annas 12.

BUKHARARI, Tahsil CHHATA

An agricultural village lying in 27°52'N. And 77°30'E. Close to the Agra canal. It is six miles north-east of Kosi and 34 miles distant from Muttra. It is a place of no importance, but had a population in 1901 of 2,059 persons of whom 1,850 were Hindus, 73 were Mahammadans and 136 of other religions, chiefly Jains. Jadon Rajputs are the numerically strongest Hindu caste and own most of the village, which has an area of 2,329 acres. There is a primary school in the village and also a substantial house built about 100 years ago by a wealthy Bania of the place named Bhika.

CHAUMUHA, Tahsil CHHATA

Chaumuha is situated on the high road to Dehli at a distance of 10 miles from Muttra, in 27°37'N. And 77°36'E. The village has a total area of 5,030 acres, and in 1901 the popula tion was returned at 3,735 persons, of whom 272 were Musal mans and 11 of other religions than Hinduism. The predominant Hindu caste was Gaurua Rajputs. Until the year 1816 the vil lage was included in the home tahsil. It contains the remains of a large brick-built sarai, said to have been erected in the reign of Sher Shah; and immediately opposite its upper gate, though at some little distance from it, stands one of the old imperial Kos minars. In the old topographies the sarai is described as situated at Akbarpur. This is still the name of the adjoining village, which must at one time have been of much wider extent, for the name Chaumuha is quite modern and is derived from an ancient sculpture supposed to represent the four-faced (chaumuha) god Brahma, which was discovered in a field close by: it is in reality the pedestal of a Jaini statue or column. There is a small temple in the village dedicated to Bihari Ji, and two ponds known as Bihari Kund and Chandokhar. When Madhoji Sindhia was the paramount power in Muttra, he bestowed the village as an endowment for educational purposes on a pandit by name Gangadhar, and it was confirmed to his sons in 1824. Settle ment was made with the local zamindars, and three quarters of the whole revenue of Rs. 5,120 go to the Agra College. A weekly market is held in the village on Tuesdays; and there is an upper primary school for boys, attended by some 40 pupils. As a punishment for misbehaviour during the Mutiny the village was burnt down, and for one year the revenue demand was raised to half as much again. The village now forms part of the endowment of the great temple of Rangji at Brindaban.

CHHATA, Tahsil CHHATA

The town of Chhata is situated in 27°44,N. and 77°3O,E., on the high road between Muttra and Dehli, at a distance of 21 miles from the district capital. Since the Mutiny it has been the headquarters of the tahsil of thex same name. The principal feature of the town is a large fort-like sarai covering an area of 12 acres, with battlemented walls and bastions and two lofty entrance gateways of decorated stone-work. The interior is now disfigured by a number of mean mud houses and shops, the erection of which has been allowed although the land belongs to the Government. It is locally said to have been built in the reign of Sher Shah but may, with greater probability, be ascribed to that of Akbar, in whose time it was, if not begun, at least almost certainly completed. In 1857 it was occupied by the rebel zamindars, and one of the towers had to be blown down before an entrance could be effected. At the same time the town was set on fire and partially destroyed, and twenty-two of the leading men were shot. It was originally intended to confiscate the whole village; but eventually only one and a half times the revenue was taken for one year. The name is locally derived from Chhatra-dharana-lila, which Krishna is said to have celebrated here; but there is no legend regarding such an event, and in all probability the name refers merely to the stone ceno taphs that surmount the sarai gateways and form prominent objects in the landscape from a, considerable distance. The town contains a police station, post-office, primary school, an inspection house belonging to the Public Works department, and an encamping ground for troops. Weekly market is held on Fridays.

Chhata has been administered under Act XX of 1856, since the year 1859. The income which averages some Rs. 1,235 per annum is raised by the usual house-tax and expended in the maintenance of a small force of police, a staff of sweepers for conservancy and on simple works of improvement. The popula tion has increased of late years; in 1872 it numbered 6,720 persons, and this figure fell to 6,014 in 1881. In 1891 there was a recovery to 6,607, and at the last enumeration in 1901 the population was returned at 8,287 persons, of whom 3,853 were females. The inhabitants comprised 6,691 Hindus, 1,486 Musalmans and 110 others. The Hindus have nine small temples and the Muhammadans four mosques.The Village Sanitation Act (U. P. Act II of 1892) is in force in the town.

CHHATA Tahsil

This subdivision is the north-western tahsil of the district. It lies between the parallels of 27°33', and 27°56'N. and 77°17' and 77°42,E., and is bounded on the north by the Gurgaon district of the Punjab and the Jumna; on the east by the Jumna, which separates it from Mat tahsil; on the south by tahsil Muttra; and on the west by the state of Bharatpur. In shape the tahsil is almost a square twenty miles broad and equally long, but the northern face is somewhat shortened by an easterly bend in the stream of the Jumna near Shergarh ghat. The southern portion differs in some respects from the northern, which formed the old pargana of Kosi; and for purposes of detailed description it is better to keep them separate. The southern or Chhata portion, which is situated between the rocky ranges which obtrude on the district in the west and the Jumna valley on the east, has an exceptionally level and uniform surface. There is no stream or river to break the level of the country, and the one line of drainage known as the western depression, which has already been described, forms a series of depressions only at long and uncertain intervals. At a distance of three miles to the east of it runs a narrow belt of sand which rises slightly above the general level of the country. From this belt to the sand hills and ravines that flank the Janina, the surface is only broken by a line of light sandy soil which runs generally parallel to the Dehli road. With the exception of these sandy ridges the upland soil is a light but firm loam of excellent fertility, containing a sufficient admixture of sand to render it easily workable and friable. The low land along the river, except in the bend in the north-east and between Basai and the border of the Muttra tahsil in the south-east is nowhere extensive. The soil in it is purely alluvial and varies from a pure white sand to a rich and firm dark loam; while the Jumna ravines are not of sufficient extent to form an important physical feature of the tract.

The uplands of the Kosi or northern portion resemble generally those of Chhata; but there are no hills in it except the low rocky outcrop of Charan Pahar. The level is diversified by low sand ridges. One of these runs parallel to the Bharatpur hills, which can be seen from the district border, and forms the boundary of the tahsil on the west and north-west; whilst on the east there are the usual ravines and sandy downs along the Jumna. Besides these two sand ridges, there is a star-shaped system of sand ranges, branching out in four directions from a centre at Goheta. One runs northwards into Gurgaon, another north-eastwards to the Jumna, joining the. ravines of that river near Barhs, a third projects south-westwards into Chhata, and a fourth runs due south. This system divides the upland portion into four distinct plains. The largest of these lies to the west with the Charan Pahar in the centre; it is a level plain of rich friable loam, but the depth of water in it is great and the water itself is brackish. The next largest plain lies between the north-western and north-eastern rays of the star; it resembles the plain just described in many features. The soil is the same, though a trifle lighter, except in depressions; the water also is far from the surface and brackish. The third plain is that on the Chhata side to the south-east; it is a continuation of the great eastern loam plain of Chhata, the description of which applies equally to it. The fourth and smallest plain comprises the northern end of the central loam tract of Chhata and lies between the two southern rays of the star. The surface is not so uniform as in the plains already described but slopes gradually from the edge of the sand hills towards the centre, where there is a depression. In this depression the soil is hard and cloddy, while nearer the sand ranges it become almost bhur. The Jumna khadar is distinctly marked by a line of cliff that rises abruptly out of it to the height of some twenty-five feet; behind this cliff there is a belt of ravines or sandy downs which separates the bangar from the, khadar. All the village sites bordering on the river are built along this cliff.

The total area of the tahsil is 260,013 acres or 406.2 square miles. Of this 15,358 acres or 5.90 per cent. are returned as barren, and 40,582 or 15.61 per cent. as culturable waste. For the five years ending in 1907 the cultivated area averaged 204,073 acres: this represents a proportion of 78.48 per cent. on total area, and exceeds the percentages of both Muttra and Mat tahsils. The Agra canal traverses the tahsil from north to south and irrigation is extensively practised. The average area irrigated between 1903 and 1907 was 74,152 acres or 34.37 per cent. of that cultivated. Practically the whole of this area was watered from canals and wells, the former irrigating over 83 per cent of the whole. The principal harvest is the kharif, averaging 129,522 acres as against 95,161 acres in the Rabi. The double-cropped area amounts on an average to 20,963 or 10.27 per cent of the cultivation. The principal crops in the kharif are juar, alone or in combination with arhar, cotton and bajra, while a fair amount of guar and khurti are also grown. In the Rabi the bulk of the area sown is occupied by barley, alone or intermixed with gram, and by gram alone.

Owing to the introduction of canal irrigation and its subsequent extension to the tract round. Nandgaon the development of agri culture is fairly high. The chief cultivating castes are Jats, Brahmans, Rajputs, Chamars, Kachhis and Gujars. Of the total holdings area in 1908, 18.11 per cent was in the hand of ex-pro prietary and occupancy tenants, 34.49 per cent was tilled by tenants-at-will and 44.60 per cent. by the proprietors themselves, 3,042 acres being rent-free. Chhata contains 172 villages, at present divided into 389 mahals. Of the latter 86, representing 22.07 per cent of the area, are in the hands of single zamindars; 26 or 3.60 per cent are held in perfect and 207 or 63.76 per cent in imperfect pattidari tenure; while 30 or 7.39 per cent. are bhaiyachara and 40 or 3.17 per cent are revenue free. Jats hold the largest area with 70,765 acres; and after them come Rajputs, 55,595; Brahmans 27,270; Kayasths, 17,702; Musalmans, 9,796; and Banias, 9,777 acres. The largest landholders are the Lala Babu, eleven villages paying a revenue of Rs. 23,129; Babu Kalyan Singh of Muttra, the heir of Lala Jagan Prasad, six whole villages and parts of 7 others assessed to Rs. 14,499; Kunwar Mahendra Pratab Singh, 8 villages with a revenue of Rs. 9,414; and the temple of Rangji at Brindaban which owns one village assessed to Rs. 4,000.

In 1881 the two parganas of Chhata and Kosi had a com bined population of 149,891 souls, and since that time the total has steadily increased. At the following enumeration in 1891 the number had risen to 153,465, while at the last census there were 173,756 inhabitants, of whom 82,161 were females. The average density is 428 persons to the square mile-the smallest figure in the district. Classified according to religions, there were 151,306 Hindus, 21,067 Musalmans, 1,203 Jains, 120 Chris tians, 28 Sikhs, 20 Aryas and 12 Parsis. Chamars are the most numerous Hindu caste, numbering 31,294 persons, while after them come Brahmans, 24,864; Rajputs, 24,448; and Jats, 20,843. Other castes with over two thousand members apiece are Banias, 7,206; Gujars, 5,737; Gadariyas, 3,342; Koris, 3,173; Barhais, 3,054; Kumhars, Nais, Kahars and Bhangis. Jadons are the numerically strongest Rajput clan, exceeding all others by a large number: they are followed by Kachhwahas, Chauhans and Tomars. The chief Muhammadan subdivisions are Qassabs, Sheikhs, Mewatis, converted Rajputs, and Bhangis, Pathans, Bhishtis and Faqirs. The tahsil is mainly agricultural in character, though Kosi is a commercial and industrial centre of growing importance, especially with regard to the cotton trade. The number of cattle-breeders and graziers is also larger than in most parts of the district, as Kosi is a famous cattle-market and the whole tahsil has a long-standing reputation for the quality and breed of its cattle

The only towns in the tahsil are the municipality of Kosi and the Act XX towns of Shergarh and Chhata: besides these there are a few places of importance. Kamar, though now a declining place, was once administered under Act XX of 1856 and is the centre of a small local trade. Nandgaon and Barsana are famous places of pilgrimage; and Sahar was from the days of Akbar up to the Mutiny the headquarters of a pargana. Majhoi possesses a police station; and there are several large villages such as Bathan, Taroli, Hatana and others. Lists of the markets, fairs, schools and post-offices in the tahsil are given in the appendix.

Chhata is well supplied with means of communication. The Agra-Dehli Chord railway traverses it from north to south, and close by, parallel to this, runs the metalled road from Muttra to Dehli. Uumetalled roads run from Chhata to Shergarh, where there is a ferry over the Jumna, to Barsana and to Sahar; and from Kosi to Kamar, Nandgaon, Shergarh Majhoi and Shahpur. The south-eastern portion of the tahsil is traversed by the road which leaves the Dehli road at Jait and runs to Shergarh. Besides the ferry at Shergarh, there are other ferries at Chaundras near Shahpur, Majhoi, Bahta, Siyara and Bhaugaon: but that at Shergarh is far the most important.

In early times Chhata was probably occupied by Meos. Next came the Gujars, Rajputs and Jats who settled in it. In the days of Akbar it fell within the mahals of Sahar and Hodal and possibly Kamah in the sarkar of Agra. The Jats appear to have been responsible for the creation of par ganas Shergarh, Kosi and Shahpur out of the Ain-i-Akbari pargana of Sahar, the last of which became later merged in Kosi. At the cession in 1803 Shergarh was given as a revenue-free jagir to Balla Bai, daughter of Madhoji Sindhia; but was resumed in 1808 along with other parganas in lieu of a cash payment. From the cession until the Mutiny the head-quarters of the old Sahar tahsil remained at Sahar; but the records and establishments were removed to Chhata in 1857 and have ever since remained there. The last change came in 1894 when the tahsil of Kosi was abolished and the Kosi pargana was amalgamated with that of Sahar or Chhata to form the Chhata tahsil.

At the present day the tahsil constitutes a revenue and criminal subdivision which is generally entrusted to the senior joint, assistant or deputy magistrate on the district staff. For purposes of police administration there are stations at Chhata, Kosi, Sahar, Barsana, Shergarh and Majhoi.

DAGHAITA, Tahsil MAHABAN

This village lies in 27° 25' N. and 77° 54' E., nine miles east of Mahaban and thirteen miles from the civil station of Muttra. It has a total area of 2,392 acres and is assessed to a revenue demand of Rs. 5,246, the zamindars being Brahmans, who purchased from the original Jat proprietors. In 1901 the population numbered 2,333 persons, of whom 116 were Muhammadan and 43 of other religions than Hinduism, Chamars being the numeri cally strongest Hindu caste. The place contains a primary school; and a market is held every Monday, at which traffic in agricultural stock is mostly carried on.

FARAH, Tahsil MUTTRA

Farah lies not far from the right bank of the Jumna in 27° 19'N. and 77° 45' E., sixteen miles south of Muttra, on the metalled road to Agra. The town contains a police station, post-office, a small inspection house belonging to the district board, and an encamping-ground for troops. When it was the headquarters of a pargana, it also contained a tahsili school, but at the present time there is only a primary school for boys. Markets are held on Mondays and Fridays. The town was founded by Hamida Begam, the mother of Akbar. About 1555 A.D., during the exile of Humayun, it was the scene of a battle between Sikandar Shah, a nephew of Sher Shah, and Ibrahim Shah, in which the latter was defeated. After the sack of Ol in 1737 A.D., Suraj Mal removed the tahsil to Farah; and it is since this time that the town has been of importance. Eighty-four villages in the pargana of Farah, including the town, were detached from Agra and added to Muttra in 1879.

Farah has been administered under the provisions of Aet XX of 1856 since 1866. The income under the house assessment averages some Rs. 760 yearly and is expended in the usual way on the maintenance of extra police, a small conservancy staff and works of improvement in the town. The population in 1881 was returned at 3,642 persons, and this fell to 2,569 in 1891. At the last enumeration in 1901 the inhabitants num bered 2,795 of whom 1,302 were women. Classified according to religions there were 1,641 Hindus, 1,150 Musalmans and 4 others.

The town site is the property of the Government. There is a station called Farah close to the town on the Agra-Dehli Chord section of the Great Indian Peninsula railway; and the Village Sanitation Act (U. P. Act II of 1892) is in force.

GIROI, Tahsil CHHATA

A large agricultural village lying in 27° 45' N. and 77° 23' E., on the western border of the district, nine miles west of Chhata and 27 miles north-west of Muttra. In 1901 the village had a population of 2,186 persons, of whom 2,121 were Hindus and 65 were Musalmans, Jats being the predominant Hindu caste. The total area of the village is 3,013 acres and it is assessed to a revenue demand of Rs. 5,724. The zamindwrs are Jats and of the same pal as those of the adjoining village of Nandgaon, in eoncert with whom they annually celebrate the Phul Dol on the banks of a pond called Gendokhar Kund, on the thirteenth day of the light half of Phagun. The place contains a primary school, and is also known as Gindoh or Gandwa.

GOBARDHAN, Tahsil MUTTRA

Gobardhan is situated sixteen miles from Muttra, on the metalled road to Dig in Bharatpur, in 27° 30'N. and 77°28E. Accord ing to the literal meaning of the Sanskrit compound, Gobardhan is "the nurse of cattle." It is a famous place of Hindu pilgrimage, and occupies a recess in a narrow sandstone hill some four or five miles in length. This hill has an average elevation of one hundred feet above the plain, and is ordinarily styled by the Hindus the Giriraj or royal hill, but in the earlier literature is more frequently designated the Annakut. It is the hill which Krishna is fabled to have held aloft on the tip of his finger for seven days and nights to cover the people of Braj from the storms poured down upon them by Indra. The ridge attains its greatest elevation towards the south between the villages of Jatipura and Anyaur. Here, on the summit, was an ancient temple founded in the year 1520 A.D. by the famous Valla bhacharya of Gokul and dedicated to Srinath. In anticipation of one of Aurangzeb's raids the image of the god was removed to Nathdwara in Udaipur territory and has remained there ever since, while the temple on the Giriraj has fallen into ruins. In the little village of Jatipura, at the foot of the hill, there are several temples, one of which, dedicated to Gokul Nath, has considerable local celebrity. It is the annual scene of two religious solemnities both celebrated on the day after the Dip-dan at Gobardhan. The first is the adoration of the sacred hill called the Giriraj Puja and the second the Annakut, or commemoration of Krishna's sacrifice. The dusty circular road which winds around the base of the hill has a length of seven Kos, or about twelve miles, and pious pilgrims may frequently be seen measuring their length along it the whole way round. This ceremony, called Dandanati pari-karama, occupies from a week to a fortnight, and is often performed vicariously for the wealthy by the Brahmans of the place.

The town clusters round the margin of a very large irregu larly shaped masonry tank called the Manasi Gangs which, as the name denotes, is supposed to have been called into existence by the operation of the divine will. At one end its boundary is formed by the jutting crags of the sacred rock; on all the other sides the water is approached by long flights of steps. It is said to have been first made into its present shape by Raja Man Singh of Jaipur in the reign of Akbar; but it has been since repeatedly repaired at great cost by successive Rajas of Bharatpur. During half the year it is almost dry;; but at the annual illumination (Dip-dan), which occurs at the festival of the Diwali in November, a fine broad sheet of water reflects the light of the innumerable lamps ranged tier above tier along the ghats and adjacent buildings by the pilgrims who then throng the town. The metalled road from Muttra to Dig passes through a break in the hill. This break is called Dan-ghat from the tradition that it was there that Krishna stationed himself to intercept the milk maids (gopis) and to levy a toll (dan) on the milk they were bringing in

Close to the Manasi Gangs is the famous temple of Harideva, erected during the reign of Akbar by Raja Bhagwan Das of Ambar on a site long previously occupied by a succession of humbler shrines. It consists of a nave sixty-eight feet in length and twenty feet broad, leading to a choir twenty feet square, with a sacrarium of about the same dimensions beyond. The con struction is extremely massive, and the exterior is still imposing though the two towers which originally crowned the choir and sacrarium were long ago levelled with the roof of the nave. The material employed throughout the superstructure is red sandstone from the Bharatpur quarries.

On the opposite side of the Manasi Ganga are two stately cenotaphs or chhattris to the memory of Randhir Singh and Baladeva Singh, Rajas of Bharatpur. Both are of similar design, but from an architectural point of view they are not of any great merit. In that which commemorates Baladeva Singh, who died in 1825, the British army figures conspicuously in the paintings on the ceilings of the pavilions. Raja Randhir Singh, who is commemorated by the companion monument, was the elder brother and predecessor of Baladeva Singh, and died in 1823. A mile or so from the town, on the borders of the village of Radhakund, is a much more magnificent architectural group erected by Jawahir Singh, in honour of his father Suraj Mal, the founder of the family. The principal chhattri, which is fifty-seven feet square, is of the same style as those already noticed. The Raja's monument is flanked on either side by one of smaller dimensions, commemorating his two queens, Hansiya and Kishori; while attached to Rani Hansiya's monument is a smaller one in commemoration of a faithful attendant. Behind is an extensive garden, and in front, at the foot of the terrace on which the chhattris stand, is an artificial lake called the Kusum Sarovar, 460 feet square. On the north side some progress had been made in the erection of a chhattri, for Jawahir Singh, when the work was interrupted by a Muhammadan in-road and never renewed. On the same side the ghats of the lake are partly in ruins, and it is said were reduced to this condition, a very few years after their completion, by Gosain Himmat Bahadur,. who carried away the materials to Brinda ban, to be used in the construction of a ghat which still com memorates his name there. A third cenotaph is being con structed in memory of Raja Jaswant Singh.

Gobardhan has been administered under Act XX. of 1856 since the year 1859. The income, which is raised by an assess ment according to circumstances and is usually known as the house-tax, averages some Rs. 2,635 yearly: it is expended in maintaining a small force of police for watch and ward, a staff of sweepers for conservancy and in simple works of improve ment to the town. The population of the town has considerably increased of late years: in 1881 it numbered 4,944 persons: by 1891 this figure had risen to 5,447, and at the last enumer ation in 1901 the inhabitants amounted to 6,738 souls. Classified according to religions there were 6,276 Hindus, 441 Musalmans and 21 others.

After the cession by Sindhia, in 1803, Gobardhan and a considerable number of villages were granted free of assessment to Kunwar Lachhman Singh, youngest son of Raja Ranjit Singh of Bharatpur, but on his death in 1826 they were annexed by the Government to the district of Agra. For many years the Rajas of Bbaratpur repeatedly solicited the Government to cede the place to them in exchange for other territory of equal value, as it contained so many memorials of their ancestors, but the requests were not granted. The town contains a police station, post-office, cattle-pound and lower primary school attended by some 80 boys. Market is held on Saturdays.The Village Sanitation Act (U. P. Act II of 1892) is in force in the town.

GOKUL, Tahsil MAHABAN

The town of Gokul lies in the west of tahsil Mahaban on the banks of the Jumna River in 27°27'N. and 77°44' E. It is only one mile from Mahaban and four miles south-east of Muttra, and is connected both with the railway bridge over the river opposite Muttra and the bridge-of-boats on the Muttra-Mahaban road by a metalled road. Though bearing a name of many legendary associations, it is in reality only the modern river-side suburb of the inland town of Mahaban. All the traditional sites of Krishna's adventures, though described in the Puranas as being at Gokul, are shown at Mahaban. However, in consequence of its retaining the ancient name, the modern suburb is considered much the more sacred place of the two. Its modern celebrity is derived from the great heiresearch Vallabhacharya, of whom some account has been given in Chapter III; and it is much frequented by pilgrims from the Bombay side, where the doctrines of the Vallabhacharya sect have been very widely propagated. From the opposite side of the river Gokul has a very picturesque appearance, but a nearer view shows its tortuous streets to be mean and crowded in spite of the fact that a large number of the buildings are of masonry. None of the temples, of which the number is very large, present a very imposing appearance. The three oldest, dedicated respectively to Gokul Nath, Madan Mohan and Bithal Nath, are ascribed to the year 1511 A.D. The most notable of the remainder are those of Dwarka Nath, dating from 1546 A.D.; of Balkrishn, from 1636 A.D.; and the two shrines erected in honour of Mahadeva by Bijai Singh, Raja of Jodh pur, in 1602. The principal melas are the Januma Ashtami in Bhadon and the Annakut on the day after the new moon of Kartik. The Trinavart Mela is also held on the fourth day of the dark half of Kartik, when paper figures of the demon are first paraded and then torn to pieces. The prin cipal gate of the town is that called the Gandipura darwaza: it is of stone with two corner turrets, but has never been com pletely finished. From it a road runs down to Gandipura on the bank of the river, where there is a baoli and a large house built by one Manohar Lal, a Bhattia. Below it is the Ballabh ghat, with Koila on the opposite bank of the stream. This road is much frequented by pilgrims, and a ferry plies over the river. The only other noteworthy ornament of the town is a large masonry tank constructed about 1850 by one Chunni Seth.

Gokul has been administered under Act XX of 1856 since the year 1859. The annual income of the town is some Rs. 1,525, which is expended on watch and ward, conservancy and simple improvements. The town is not a very clean one, its condition being attributed to the numerous cattle which are stalled in it every night and render it in reality what the name denotes, a cowpen (gokul). There is a small school in the town, and a combined post and telegraph office. The population appears to have somewhat decreased of late years: in 1881 it numbered 4,012 persons; this rose to 4,199 in 1891, but at the last enumeration in 1901, there were only 3,880 persons in the town, of whom 1,910 were females. Of the whole population 3,803 were Hindus and the remaining 77 were Musalmans. One small speciality of the place is the manufacture of silver toys and ornaments: these have already been described in Chapter II.The Village Sanitation Act (U. P. Act II of 1892) is in force in the town.

GUTAHRA, Tahsil SADABAD

This large village is situated in the south-east of the district, close to the Agra border, in 27°23'N. and 78°8'E. It lies six miles south-east from Sadabad and thirty-two miles from the dis trict headquarters. The total area of the village is 2,527 acres, and the revenue demand is Rs. 6,900. The place was founded by one Sheoraj, a Gahlot Rajput from Chitor, who ejected the Ahirs then in possession. The population has increased from 1,985 persons in 1881 to 2,595 persons in 1901; and the Hindu popu lation numbers 2,372 souls as against 223 Muhammadans. Rajputs still own a portion of the estate, but much of it has passed to Brahmans, Ahirs and Banias. Chamars are the predominant Hindu caste. The place contains an aided school and is also known by the name of Khera Ali Saiyid.

HASANPUR, Tahsil MAT

This is a large village situated in 27°50'N. and 77°47'E., near the boundary of the Aligarh district, sixteen miles from Mat, seven miles due east of Nohjhil and twenty-two miles from the city of Muttra. The village was founded in the seventeenth century by a Jat of Barauth, named Hansa. There is still a gateway in it called Chaukhat Hansa, and an old khera or deserted site bears the name Mahona. In 1901 Hasanpur had a population of 2,240 souls, 1,837 being Hindus, 135 Muhammadans and 268 of other religions, for the most part Aryas. The number of the inhabitants has increased from 1,910 in 1881. The total area of the village is 2,232 acres and it is assessed to a revenue demand of Re. 4,655, the zamindars being Jats. Hasanpur Contains both a boys' and a girls' school.

HATANA, Tahsil CHHATA

Hatana lies in 27°52'N. and 77°26'E., in the extreme north of the district near the Gurgaon border. The metalled road to Dehli and the Agra-Dehli Chord railway run about two and a half miler to the west of the village, and about a mile and a half to the east flows the Agra canal. The village has an area of 3,418 acres, assessed to a revenue demand of Rs. 5,237, the zamindars being a large community of Jats of the Sorot subdivision. The population increased from 2,117 in 1881 to 2,718 in 1901: of the latter 2,640 were Hindus and 78 were Muhammadans. Beyond the canal near Sessai lies the dahar or depression of Nandban, 365 bighas in extent. The latter is considered a hamlet of Hatana, but is really an offshoot of Sessai in Gurgaon. Here a temple of some size and very considerable local celebrity, dedicated to Lakshmi Narain, stands on the margin of an extensive lake faced on the temple side with masonry ghats. This is known as the Kshir Sagar or "Milky Sea."

JAIT, Tahsil MUTTRA

Jait lies on the provincial road from Muttra to Dehli, in 27°35'N. and 77°38'E., at a distance of nine miles from Muttra. Unmetalled roads lead from it to Shergarh, Brindaban, Ral and Sahar. The village has a total area of 3,569 acres and is assessed to a demand of Re. 4,419, the proprietor being Kunwar Sarat Chandra Sen, the heir of the Lala Babu, to whom the proprietary rights were transferred in 1811 A.D. for a very small considera tion. The population in 1881 numbered 1,512 souls; but in 1901 the number had risen to 2,291, of whom 2,145 were Hindus, 120 Musalmans and 26 of other religions. The predominant Hindu caste is that of Rajputs, who are for the most part of the Kachh waha clan, the clan of Raja Jasraj of Kotah, the founder of the village. Until 1808 the village was included in the pargana of Sonsa and formed part of the jagir granted to Balla Bai, the wife of Daulat Rao Sindhia: it was resumed in that year. Jait possesses a police station, post-office, cattle-pound and an aided school.

JALESAR ROAD RAILWAY STATION, Tahsil SADABAD. Vide MANIKPIIR.

JARAU, Tahsil SADABAD

This is a large agricultural village lying in 27°21'N. and 78°4'E., two miles east of the metalled road which runs past Sadabad to Agra, at a distance of seven miles from Sadabad. In 1881 it had a population of 2,123 souls, but this number had risen in 1901 to 2,635, 2,484 being Hindus, 148 Musal mans and three persons of other religions. The village is said to have been founded in the fourteenth century by Dip Singh, a Chauhan Rajput from Baman; but, besides his decendants, Brahmans and Banias now own shares in the village. The total area of the estate is 3,221 acres; it is assessed to a reve nue demand of Rs. 7,686. Market is held every Monday and Friday.

JAWARA, Tahsil MAT

Jawara is a large village nearly four miles due east of Mat in 27°38'N. and 77°47'E. The village has an area of 4,295 acres and is assessed to a revenue of Rs. 11,468, the zamindars being a mixed community of Jats, the original proprietors, Banias, Brahmans and Bairagis. The old name of the place was Jhunagarh; and here is situated the sacred grove of Chandraban, named after the sakhi, Chandravati, and a Bairagi's cell under the tutelage of Balmakund. The trees in the grove are pilu, babul and pasendu, with a few large and venerable kadambs. Jawara possesses a primary school, and market is held every Monday and Friday in Nagla Bari, a hamlet of the village. Fairs are held in the village on the second and third day of the Holi festival, and there is a dargah of Mir Sahib Sheikh Saddu where people assemble every Wednesday and Saturday. The population has increased from 4,066 souls in 1881 to 4,631 souls in 1901, 4,361 being Hindus, 258 Musalmans and 12 of other religions. Jats are the numerically strongest caste, and at the Mutiny a pitched battle was fought between these Jats and those of Aira Khera, in which as many as 450 lives are said to have been lost.

JHUNDAWAI, Tahsil MUTTRA

Jhundawai lies in the extreme south of the district in. 27°15'N. and 77°42'E., close to the Agra canal; it is sixteen miles distant in a direct line from the civil station of Muttra. It is a large village with an area of 2,990 acres and is assessed to a demand of Rs. 5,771, the zamindars being partly Jats and partly Kashmiri Brahmans, represented by Pandit Bishambar Nath. The place contains a primary school, but is otherwise one of no importance, and the population has somewhat decreased; for in 1881 there were 3,347 inhabitants whereas in 1901 the number had fallen to 3,039, of whom 2,861 were Hindus, 168 were Musal mans and 10 of other religions.

KAMAI, Tahsil CHHATA

This large village lies about four miles due west of Sahar, at a distance of ninteen miles from Muttra, in 27°38,N. and 77°26'E. It has a total area of 4,108 acres, assessed to a revenue demand of Rs. 5,000, and the population in 1901 numbered 2,612 persons, of whom 2,526 were Hindus, 80 Muhammadan and six of other religions. The village is owned by a large community of Jadon Rajputs, and is one of the stations in the Banjatra. The Ras Lila is celebrated here on the sixth day of the light half of Bhadon and the Phul Dol fair is kept on the fifth day of the dark half of Chait. The village contains a primary school, four small temples and three sacred ponds called Hari-kund, Baladeva kand and Piri-pokhar.

KAMAR, Tahsil CHHATA

The town of Kamar lies in 27°49N. and 77°21'E., at a distance of thirty-three miles from Muttra and six miles from Kosi. The village has an area of 3,544 acres, and the town, though still a considerable place with a large trade in cotton; was of much greater importance during the early part of the 18th century, when Thakur Badan Singh, the father of Raja Suraj Mal, married a daughter of one of the resident families. A walled garden outside the town contains some monuments of the lady's kinsmen, and in connection with it is a large masonry tank supplied with water brought by aqueducts from the surrounding rakhya or woodland. This is more than a thousand acres in extent, and according to the village computation is three kos long, including the village which occupies the centre. At a little distance is a lake with unfinished stone ghats, the work of Raja Suraj Mal; this is called Durvasakund. A temple of Suraj Mal's foundation, dedicated to Madan Mohan, is specially affected by all the jats of the Bahinwar pal, who are accounted its chelas or disciples, and assemble here to the number of 4,000 on the second day of the dark fortnight of Chait to celebrate the Phut Dol mela. In the town are several large brick mansions built by Chaudhris Jaswant Singh and Sita Ram, connections of Raja Suraj mal: but they are all in ruins.

Kamar was formerly administered under Act XX of 1856, but the provisions of the Act were withdrawn before 1891. In 1881 the town had a population of 3,771 persons: this fell to 3,458 in 1901. Of the whole number 3,262 were Hindus, 159 were Musalmans and 37 persons were of other religions. Jats are the predominant Hindu caste, and there are some Jains resi dent in the place. It contains a school, and a weekly market is held on Mondays. Kamar is owned for the most part by a large community of Jats, and is assessed to a revenue demand of Rs. 4,679.

KANJAULI, Tahsil SADABAD

A large agricultural village, eight miles south of Sadabad and thirty-two miles from Muttra via the metalled road and Sadabad. The village lies about two miles west of the provincial road from Sadabad to Agra, in 27°20'N. and 78°2'E. The area of the village is 2,007 acres and it is assessed to a revenue demand of Rs. 6,104, the proprietors being Jats. The population in 1881 was 2,644 persons, but in 1901 the number had increased to 3,193, of whom 3,004 were Hindus and 189 were Musalmans. The village contains a primary school, but is otherwise a place of no importance.

KARAB, Tahsil MAHABAN

Karab lies on the metalled road from Raya to Baldeo in 27°28'N. and 77°48'E., at a distance of six miles from Mahaban and Raya, and fourteen miles from Muttra city via Raya. The village has an area of 3,121 acres and is assessed to a demand of Rs. 7,382. The original owners were Jats of the Hag got, but much of the property has passed into the hands of Brahmans, now represented by Bohra Gajadhar Singh. The village contains a primary school, and the market, which is held every Thursday, is the largest in the district for the sale of leather. The population in 1901 numbered 2,689 souls, of whom 2,577 were Hindus, 87 Muhammadans and 25 of other religions, Chamars being the numerically strongest Hindu caste.

KARAHRI, Tahsil MAT

This village is situated in the centre of the tahsil, 27°44N and 77°47'E., at a distance of eight miles from Mat and eighteen miles from the city of Muttra. The area of the village is 2,724 acres and its revenue Rs. 6,453; while its population in 1901 was 3,096 souls, an increase of 275 persons over the figure of 1881. Of the whole number 2,685 were Hindus, 317 were Musalmans and 94 were of other religions, chiefly Aryas; and the predomi nant Hindu caste was that of Chamars. The zamindars were once Dhakara Rajputs; but now most of the area has passed to Musalmans of Salimpur in Aligarh, Jais Rajputs, Jats and Banias. There are an old sarai, a ruined indigo factory, two; small temples and a primary school in the village; and markets are held in it every Tuesday and Friday, the latter day being-confined to the sale of cattle. A large orchard of mango, jamun, amla, labera and other trees forms one of the pleasantest camp ing-grounds in the tahsil.

KHAIRA, Tahsil CHHATA

This large village is situated in 27°42'N. and 77°27'E., four miles west-south-west from Chhata and twenty miles north-west from Muttra city. The name is said to be derived from khadira ban, where there is a pond called Krishna-kund, the scene of an annual fair. It has two masonry ghats and the same Raja of Burdwan, who constructed the Pan Sarovar at Nandgaon, had commenced facing the whole of it with stone, but the work was stopped almost at the beginning by his death. On its margin is a temple of Baladeva with a handsome chhatri in memory of one Rup Ram, Bohra, built about 1845 by his widow. Another temple with the title of Gopinath is said to have been founded by the famous Todar Mal of Akbar's time. There are three other temples called respectively Madan Mohan, Darsan Bihari and Maha Prabhu, and two small lakes bearing the names of Bhawani and Chinta-Khori. In 1881 Khaira had a popu lation of 2,629 souls, but in 1901 the number had risen to 3,253, of whom 3,092 were Hindus, 139 Muhammadans and 22 of other religions, chiefly Jains. The area of the village is 4,153 acres and the revenue demand on it amounts to Rs. 7,200, the zamindars as well as the numerically strongest Hindu caste being Ahiwasis. Thera is a primary school in the place, and market is held every Saturday.

KOSI, Tahsil CHHATA

Kosi is the largest town in the Chhata tahsil and is situated in 27°48'N. and 77°26,E. on the Agra-Dehli road at a distance of twenty-eight miles from Muttra. The name is popularly supposed to be a corruption of kusasthali, another name for Dwarka. In 4confirmation of this belief it is pointed out that there are in Kosi places named Ratnakar Kund, Maya Kund, Bisakha Kund and Gomati Kund, just as there are at Dwarka.

The town lies in a low situation and is surrounded by hollows full of water. The Agra canal runs at a short distance from the site and the whole country round about is saturated with water. For many years it was found impossible to drain the place because there was no proper outfall, a drain leading into the canal being quite inadequate for the purpose. Conse quently Kosi was very unhealthy, the death-rate from fever being particularly high, In 1903-4, however, the Kosi arterial drain was constructed by the Irrigation department, and at the same time the municipal board made a branch drain to join it: this has had the effect of reducing the water level in the hollows round the town. In the centre stands a large sarai, covering nine and a half bighas of land, with high embattled walls, corner kiosks and two arched gateways, all of stone. This is ascribed to Khwaja Itibar Khan, governor of Dehli in the reign of the emperor Akbar. The principal bazar lies between the two gateways. A large masonry tank, of nearly equal area with the sarai, dates from the same time, and is called the Ratnakar Kund, or more commonly the pakka talao. Three other tanks bear the names of Maha-kund Bisakha-kund and Gomati-kund: the last, near which the fair of the Phul Dol is held on the second of the dark fortnight of Chait, is accounted the most sacred and is certainly the prettiest spot in the town. The pond is of considerable size, but of very irregular shape and has a large island in the centre. There are two or three masonry ghats, constructed by wealthy traders of the town, and on all three sides of it there are numbers of small shrines and temples. A little beyond the site on the northern side, close to the canal and not far from the idgah is a tirath or place of pilgrimage called Mabhai, with a masonry tank and temple.

Kosi contains a first-class police station, a combined post and telegraph office, second-class branch dispensary and primary school. There is also a municipal bungalow available as a rest-house. The town was constituted a municipality in 1866, and has always been a flourishing market town. Market is usually held on Tuesdays and Wednesdays. The chief articles of traffic are food grains, cotton, cloth, cattle and ghi. As a cattle-mart Kosi is well known in this portion of India: animals come from all parts, especially the Punjab, and some 30,000 are annually bought and sold. The nakh-khas or cattle-market is of large extent and supplied with every convenience—a fine masonry well, long ranges of feeding troughs and so forth. The trade in cotton is extensive; and there are six cotton ginning mills and presses employing between them some 580 hands. The popula tion of the town has considerably decreased since 1872: in that year the inhabitants numbered 12,770 persons. In 1881 the number had fallen to 11,231, and by 1891 there was a further decrease to 8,404. At the last enumeration in 1901 the popula tion was returned at 9,565 souls of whom 4,577 were women. Classified according to religions there were 5,496 Hindus, 3,552 Musalmans, 470 Jains, seven Christians and 40 others of un speefied religion. The Jains, or Saraogis as they are generally called, are an important community in the town. They have heres three temples, dedicated respectively to Padma Prabhu, Nem Nath and Arishtanemi. A festival is held at the temple of Nem Nath on the day after the full moon of Bhadon when water is brought for the ablution of the idol from a well in a garden at some distance. No processional or other displays however are permitted.

On May 31st, 1857, the rebels on their march to Dehli stopped at Kosi and, after burning down the customs bungalow and pillaging the police station, plundered the tahsil of the small sum of Rs. 150, which was all that they found there. The records were scattered to the winds but were to a great extent subsequently recovered. The towns-people and the inhabitants of the adjoining villages remained well affected and gave what help they could in maintaining order. As a reward for their good behaviour one year's revenue was remitted and a grant of Rs 50 was made to each lumbardar. Kosi has now a station called after it on the Agra-Dehli Chord section of the Great Indian Peninsula railway. This has fostered the direct trade with Bombay, to which place most of the cotton is exported.

KOTBAN, Tahsil CHHATA

Kotban lies at a distance of thirty-two miles from Muttra and four miles from Kosi, close to the Dehli road, in 26°51'N. and 77°25'E. The village has a total area of 2,943 acres and the zamindars are for the most part Jats, who hold it in bhaiyachara tenure, paying a revenue demand of Rs. 4,783. The village contains an aided school and a population of 2,175 persons, of whom 2,074 are Hindus and 101 Muhammadans. Kotban is the northern limit of the Banjatra. A pond bears the name of Sital-kund, and there is a temple of Sita Ram, also two large brick houses and a masonry tank constructed by Chaudhri Sita Ram, a con nection of the Rajas of Bharatpur.

KURSANDA, Tahsil SADABAD

Kursanda is rather a group of villages than a single village, which lie close to the Aligarh-Agra metalled road, three miles south of Sadabad and twenty-three miles east of Muttra, in 27°24'N. and 78°2'E. The village was first settled by a Jat of the Hags got Puran Chand, who bestowed part of the land on his family priest, Chandu Pande. Their descendants still hold the bulk of the village, which has an area of 4,541 acres and is assessed to a revenue demand of Rs. 15,994. Kursanda was the home of the outlaw Deo Karan, who plundered Sadabad in the Mutiny and was subsequently, along with Zalim of the same village, hanged for rebellion. The village contains a primary school and is an old market town of some importance, bazar days being Sundays and Thursdays. The population of the combined hamlets amounted to 5,625 souls in 1881, and in 1901 the number of the inhabitants had risen to 6,663, of whom 6,193 were Hindus, 382 Muhammadans and 88 of other religions, chiefly Jains. Jats are the numerically strongest Hindu caste.

MAGORRA, Tahsil MUTTRA

This town lies in 27°24'N. and, 77°34'E., twelve miles west-south-west of Muttra and two miles north of the metalled road to Bharatpur. The real name of the place is Mangotla, and it was, both under the Mughals and the Jats, the head of a revenue subdivision: it is also reputed to be a place of great antiquity. After being long deserted it was resettled by a family of Tomar Rajputs who divided it into four estates, which they called after their own names—Ghatam, Ram, Ajit and Jajan. These four pattis are now to all intents and purposes distinct estates with the Magorra bazar as their common centre, and there is no such mauza as Magorra. The population of the united township in 1901 was 4,759 persons, 4,445 being Hindus, 312 Muhammadans and two of other religions. Jats are the numerically strongest Hindu caste, and the zamindars are a mixed community of Jats, Banias and Brahmans. The total area of the pattis that form the township of Magorra is 4,359 acres and the revenue demand is Rs. 5,945. A weekly market is held every Thursday, and there is a primary school in the place, besides a railway station on the Nagda-Muttra railway.

MAHABAN, Tahsil MAHABAN

The headquarters town of the tahsil of the same name lies in 25°27'N. and 77°45'E. near the left bank of the Jumna. It is distant some six miles from Muttra on the metalled road to Sadabad, and may be approached either by the railway bridge near Muttra city or by the bridge-of-boats over the river on the direct road, some two miles further south.

Though the country in its neighbourhood is now singularly bare the name Mahaban denotes that there must have been at one time a wood in the loeality; and so late as the year 1634 A.D., the emperor Shahjahan ordered a hunt here and killed four tigers. The connection between Muttra and Mahaban has always been of a most intimate character; for, according to the legend, Krishna was born at the one and cradled at the other. Both places too make their appearance in history together, having been sacked by Mahmud of Ghazni in 1018 A.D. From the effects of this catastrophe it would seem that Mahaban was never able to recover. It is casually mentioned by Minhaj as one of the gathering places for the imperial army sent by the emperor Altamsh against Kalinjar in 1234 A.D. and the emperor Babar incidentally refers to it, as, if it were a place of importance still, in the year 1526 A.D. At the present day, however, though it is the seat of a tahsili, it can scarcely be called more than a considerable village. One or two large private residences have been built since 1870 with fronts of carved stone in the Muttra style; but the temples are all exceedingly mean and of no antiquity. The largest and also the most sacred is that dedicated to Mathura nath, but it is only built of brick and plaster. There are two other small shrines of some interest: in one the demon Trinavart is represented as a pair of enormous wings overhanging the infant god; the other bears the dedication of Maha Mall Rae "the great champion prince," a title given to Krishna.

A great part of the town is occupied by a high hill, partly natural, partly artificial, where stood the old fort. This is said to have been built by the same Rana Katira of Mewar to whon is ascribed also the fort at Jalesar. According to one tradition he had been driven from his own country by the Musalmans and took refuge with the Raja of Mahaban, by name Digpal his son Kant Kunwar married Digpal's daughter, and apparently succeeded to his father-in-law's dominions. He made a grant of the whole township of Mahaban to his family priests, who were Sanadh Brahmans; their descendants bear the title of chaudhri and still own shares in Mahaban known as thok chaudhriyan. The fort was recovered by the Muhammadans in the reign of Ala-ud-din by Sufi Yahya of Meshed, who intro duced himself and a party of soldiers inside the walls in litters disguised as Hindu ladies who wished to visit the shrines of Shiam Lala and Rohini. The Rana was killed, and one-third of the town was granted by the sovereign to Sufi Yahya. The place where he was buried is shown at the back of the Chhathi Palna, but is unmarked by any monument. The share granted to him is still owned by his descendants and is known as thok Saiyidat.

The shrine of Shiam Lala still exists as a mean little cell, perched on the highest point of the fortifications on the side which looks towards the Jumna. It is believed to be the spot where Jasoda gave birth to Maya, or Joganidra, substituted by Vasudeva for the infant Krishna. But by far the most interest ing building is a covered court called Nanda's palace, or more commonly the Assi-Khamba, i.e., the eighty pillars. In its present form it was erected by the Muhammadans in the time of Aurangzeb out of old materials to serve as a mosque, and, as it now stands, it is divided, by five rows of sixteen pillars each, into four aisles or rather into a centre and two narrower side asiles, with one broad outer cloister. These columns were certainly sculptured before the sack of Mahaban in 1018, and it is possible that they are the wreck of several different temples. The Bud dhist character of the building or buildings which supplied the columns is decided by the discovery of Buddhist remains let into parts of the building. Krishna's reputed cradle, a coarse struc ture, covered with calico and tinsel, still stands in the pillared hall, while a dark blue image of the sacred child looks out from a canopy against the wall. The churn from which he stole his foster-mother's butter is shown, and consists of a carved stone in which a long bamboo is placed, while a spot in the wall is pointed out as the place where the sportive milk-maids hid Krishna's flute. In addition to the steady stream of devotees from all parts of India, the pillared hall is resorted to by Hindu mothers from the neighbouring districts for their purification on the sixth day after childbirth, whence the building derives its local name of the Chhatthi Palna, or place of the Chhatthi Puja, i.e.,"the sixth day of worship." Mahaban was doubtless the site of some of those Buddhist monasteries which the Chinese pilgrim Fa-Hian distinctly states existed in his time on both sides of the river; and the town is probably the site intended by the Kliso boras or Clisobora of Arrian and Pliny.

Mahaban has been administered under Act XX of 1856 since the year 1859. It has an annual income of Rs. 1,150 which is raised by house assessment in the usual way, and expended in the maintenance of extra police, a small conservancy staff and in the carrying out of small improvements. The popula lation has steadily decreased of late years: in 1872 it numbered 6,930, but at the last enumeration in 1901, the number of inhabitants was returned at 5,523, of whom 2,640 were women. Classified according to religion there were 3,711 Hindus, 1,791 Musalmans, and 21 others. The town has a police station, cattle-pound, middle-vernacular school, and a post-office. A weekly market is held on Wednesdays. The Village Sanitation Act (U. P. Act II of 1892) is in the force in town.

MAHABAN Tahsil

Mahaban tahsil which is conterminous with the pargana of the same name lies between the parallels of 27°14' and 27°41' north latitude and 77°41' and 77°57' east longitude. The tahsil lies wholly to the east of the Jumna river which forms its boun dary on the west and south; tahsil Mat is on the north, tahsil Sadabad on the south-east, and parganas Gorai and Mursan of the Iglas and Hathras tahsils of the Aligarh district are on the north-east. The tahsil is somewhat irregular in shape. It narrows to a point on the extreme north, where it runs wedge-like between parganas Mat and Gorai; and in the extreme south it juts out into two narrow promontories, near Akos and Nera, which are almost encircled by the Jumna. In the centre the pargana widens considerably and opposite the city of Muttra it reaches its maximum breadth of fourteen miles. Its maximum length from Nimgaon to Sehat is thirty-two miles, or nearly two and a half times its greatest breadth. The most striking physical feature that distinguishes the tahsil from other parganas situated in the Doab further east is the fact that it borders the windings of the Jumna river for at least fifty miles. For a distance varying from one to three miles inland from the high banks of the stream the effect of the river on the character of the country is most marked. This belt of country is uneven in surface, broken up either by ravines or obtrusive sand-hills. The ravines do not here run in an unbroken chain along the whole course of the stream but often entirely disappear, giving place to the sand-hills which are a more common feature of the landscape higher up the river; while in those parts where these sandhills are most developed the ravines never extend far inland and are nowhere very deep, rugged or intricate. Thus from Panigaon to Muttra city, where for a distance of six miles the river sweeps in an outward curve from the Mahaban bank, there are no ravines of any consequence, but a series of sandhills instead; while on the opposite side, along the road from Muttra to Brindaban, the ravines are both deep and extensive. After the Muttra railway bridge is passed the curve of the river changes, and ravines begin to appear in Gopalpur. These get wider and deeper as Gokul is approached; but beyond Gokul the river takes a sudden bend outwards, and in that bend the soil is a pure drifting sand. Beyond this bend the curve of the river again turns inwards with the result that ravines are found at Jogipur, Nabi pur and Nurpur; next comes the loop of Sherpur and Bassi with its heavy sand, followed in turn by the most marked inward curve in the pargana. This extends from Bassi to Nagla Azim, and in it extensive ravines, the worst in the tahsil, are formed. This belt of sand and ravines is for the most part uncultivated, and exercises but little influence on the general rent-rate of the pargana. It is valuable for grazing purposes, as some of the ravines are wooded with scrub jungle, and in the sandy tracts sarpat grass grows in profusion. As soon as the zone influenced by the river is passed the country becomes level and uniform in surface, similar in almost every respect to the tahsil of Sadabad. The prevailing soil is good piliya or light loam. As in Sadabad isolated tracts of bhur or sand occur oven in this inland por tion, but they are on the whole of comparatively small area. If the conventional soils demarcated at the last settlement be divided among the natural soils that most closely correspond to them, 78 per cent. of the cultivated area in the upland is piliya, 14 per cent. is bhur, 7 per cent. is puth and one per cent. is tarai. Owing to the continuous action of the river the area and conformation of the Jumna valley or khadar land change yearly, as well as the proportion of it under cultivation. The soil is all alluvial and, as a large portion of it depends on the nature of the deposit left by the yearly flood, it varies in quality from year to year. The higher fields under the bangar cliff are generally of firmer soil and of better quality than those which are subject to inundation.

As the total area is thus apt to vary from year to year a better idea of the conformation of the tahsil will be gained from an average taken over a series of years than from the statistics of a single year. Thus for the five years ending in 1907 the total area amounted on an average to 153,697 acres or 240.1 square miles. Of this only 12,199 acres or 7.93 per cent. were recorded as barren waste, including, besides the land unfit for cultivation, that which was covered with water or with sites, roads, buildings and the like. The culturable area out of cultiva tion amounted to 19,209 acres or 12.49 per cent., well over half or 11,333 acres being returned as old fallow. During the same period the area under the plough averaged 122,288 acres or 79.56 per cent. of the whole, a higher proportion than in any other tahsil except Sadabad. Of this acreage 37,254 acres on the average were irrigated. Cultivation is close and good, and irrigation is extensively practised; but the area twice-cropped within the year averages only 12,101 acres or 9.88 per cent. of the cultivation, a smaller percentage than in any other tahsil except Sadabad. For many years the Mahaban and Sadabad tahsils were remark able for the amount of irrigation carried on from wells; but the continuous fall in the spring level from the famine of 1877-78 onwards and the increasing brackishness of the water in the wells which became alarming after the famine of 1896-97 seriously curtailed the available supply and resulted in a diminu tion of the area so irrigated. Since the opening of the Mat branch extension of the canal however, at the end of 1903, a marked improvement has taken place; and, of the total area watered during the five years ending in 1907, 17,648 acres have on an average been watered from the canal as against 19,557 served by wells. It is probable that as irrigation from the canal develops wells will be to a large extent displaced by the canal. At the same time the spring level in the wells will probably rise and the quality of the water will be improved. Another effect of canal irrigation will be to check the growth of the weed baisuri, which is prevalent in the tract extending from Raya on the north-west to Bisawar in Sadabad on the south-east. The kharif is the principal harvest and averages some 78,083 acres as against 55,503 acres sown in the rabi. The chief crops grown are juar, cotton and bajra, alone or mixed with arhar, in the autumn, and barley, alone or in combination with gram, and wheat in the spring. Small areas are devoted to maize, guar or khurti, moth, gram and peas.

The excellence of the cultivation in Mahaban is almost entirely due to the presence of the careful and industrious Jat husbandmen. These form about half the whole agricultural population; the other chief cultivating castes being Chamars, Brahmans, Rajputs, Ahirs, Barhais and Gadariyas. In 1907-08 proprietors as such held 16.23 per cent. of the holdings area, occupancy and ex-proprietary tenants 31.08 per cent., and tenants at-will 51.28 per cent., the small remainder being rent-free. Mahaban contains 201 villages, at present divided into 736 mahals. Of the latter 124, representing 13.02 per cent. of the area of the tahsil, are in the hands of single landholders, 109 or 10.16 per cent. are held in joint zamindari, 209 or 23.62 per cent. in perfect pattidari, and 246 or 45.08 per cent. in imperfect patti darri tenure; while six or less than one per cent. are recorded as bhaiyachara. The rest of the tahsil, 7.28 per cent. comprised in 42 mahals, is held revenue-free. Jats own 50,600 acres or just one-third of the pargana, and are closely followed by Brahmans with 44,632 acres or 29 per cent. After them come Banias 25,020, and Musalmans, 6,306 acres. The largest proprietor in the tahsil is Bohra Gajadhar Singh of Jagdispur in Mahaban who owns portions of 32 villages assessed to a revenue demand of Rs. 28,690. Ten whole villages and parts of four others are held by Raja Datt Prasad Singh of Mursan who pays revenue to the extent of Rs. 6,389; while Babu Kalyan Singh of Muttra holds portions of eight villages assessed in all to Rs. 3,900. The wealth iest proprietors of the Bania caste are those residing at Raya. The head of the family is Lala Radha Ballabh, an honorary magistrate. Among the Musalmans the Saiyids of Mahaban take the first place, having claims to an ancient and honourable pedigree.

In 1881 the tahsil had a population of 116,829 souls, and since that time the total has steadily increased. At the folio wing enumeration of 1891 the number had risen to 133,488, while in 1901 there were 136,566 inhabitants, of whom 62,520, were females. The average density is 569 persons to the square mile—a higher figure than in any other tahsil of the district except Sadabad and Muttra, in the latter of which the rate is swollen by the inclusion of a large city population. Classified according to religions there were 126,655 Hindus, 8,973 Musalmans, 582 Christians, 195 Jains, 158 Aryas and three Sikhs. Jats are the most numerous Hindu caste, numbering 32,842 persons, while after them come Brahmans, 23,150. Chamars, 17,915 and Banias, 8,704. Other castes with over two thousand members apiece are Gujars, Bairagis, Lodhas, Koris, Barhais, Nais, Kumhars and Rajputs. The last named are fewer in Mahaban than in any other tahsil of the district, and of the clans specified at the census the best represented were Chauhans and Gahlots. On the other hand converted Rajputs formed the most numerous subdivision of the Muhammadan population, and were followed by Qassabs, Sheikhs and Julahas. The tahsil is mainly agricultural in character and there is no commercial or industrial centre in it, practically the entire population being dependent for its live lihood on agriculture or the trade in agricultural produce.

There are four towns in the tahsil which are administered under Act XX of 1856. Mahaban is the headquarters of the tahsil establishment; Gokul and Baldeo are important religious centres, and Raya is a township and market town, situated on the Cawnpore-Achnera railway. Besides these there are some large and important villages, such as Wairni, Pachawar, Akos, Daghaita, Barauli, Karab and Sahora, which are agricultural estates containing over two thousand inhabitants. Lists of the markets ,fairs,schools and post-offices will be found in the appendix.

The communications of Mahaban are equal to its need .The metalled roads from Muttra to Sadabad and Hathras run from west to east across it from the railway bridge at Mattura city. From Raya a metalled road runs north to Mat, and there are second-class unmatelled roads to Baldeo and Sadabad, and a sixth class road direct to Mahaban. Other unmatelled roads run direct from Mahaban to Agra past Barauli and Nera, and from Baldeo to Kanjauli in Sadabad where the Aligarh-Agra metelled road is met. Besides the railway bridge at Muttra which ensures communication at all seasons of the year, the passage of the Jumna is effected by a bridge-of-boats in the hot and cold weather at gokulghat on the direct road to Mahaban, and by ferries at Koila, Basai, Lahroli, Tatrauta and Kanjauli, the ferries in the three last cases being worked from the Muttra side.

The early history of the tahsil is bound up with that of the district and has been sufficiently set fourth in chapter V. In the days of Akber, Mahaban was one of the 33 mahals of sarkar Agra. In addition to its present area, it then contained the present paragna of Mat and a part of paragna Sadabad. Immediately after the cession in 1803 it was attached to the Aligarh district, and was one of the paragna held in farm by Thakur Daya Ram of Hathras until 1808. In 1815, on the constitution of the sub-collectorate of Sadabad, it became a part of it and continued so until, in 1824,Sadabad was raised to the rank of an independent district. In 1832 it became a part of the newly formed Muttra district. Since then its boundaries have been enlarged by the addition of tappas Raya and Sonai, formerly recognized as two district subdivisions; taluqas Ar lashkarpur, Madim and Sonkh, with three villages besides from paragna Mursan; nine villages from Mat, two villagas from Sadabad; and one village from Aligarh.

For administrative purpose the tahsil constitutes a subdivision in the charge of a full-powered officer on the district staff. In police matters the jurisdiction is divided between the police station of Mahaban , Raya and Baldeo; while there are also bodies of town police at Mahaban, Gokul, Baldeo and Raya.

MAJHOI, Tahsil CHHATA

Majhoi is an agricultural village of no great size in 27°52'N. and 77°35'E., on the banks of the Jumna, twenty-eight miles north from Muttra and nine miles east-north-east from Kosi. With the latter place it is connected by an unmetalled road, and there is a ferry over the river which is annually leased by the dis trict board. The population of the place has declined from 657 souls in 1881 to 412 souls in 1901. The Hindu inhabitants num bered 404 persons, the Muhammadans seven and there was one Jain. The predominant Hindu caste is that of Gujars, who were originally the proprietors of the village; but it was confiscated at the Mutiny for rebellion and conferred on Raja Gobind Singh of Hathras. The present owner is Kunwar Mahendra Pratap Singh, the adopted son of Raja Har Narain Singh, the heir of Raja Gobind Singh. The village has a total area of 2,132 acres and pays a revenue demand of Rs. 1,000. Two large baghs in it commemorate the names of Chaina and Serhu, two members of the Gujar community; and there are two old sati tombs here. Majhoi contains a police station, post-office and primary school; the last is maintained from funds contributed by Kunwar Mahendra Pratap Singh and is a large one. Two small fairs are held in honour of Debi on the eighth day of the light half of Chait and the corresponding day of the light half of Kuar.

MANIKPUR, Tahsil SADABAD

This is a small village in the extreme east of the district, distant thirty-three miles from Muttra and nine miles from Sadabad. It lies in 27°27'N. and 78°11'E., and is only of importance because it contains the railway station on the East Indian railway which goes by the name of Jalesar Road. The population of the village in 1901 was 263 persons, to which must be added 38 for the population of the railway station, making 301 in all. Of this number 252 were Hindus, 43 Musalmans and six were Jains. Jats are the numerically strongest Hindu caste. There is a post-office at the station.

MAT, Tahsil MAT

The headquarters town of the tahsil lies in 27°36'N. and 77°48'E., at a distance of twelve miles from Muttra. Though it stands immediately on the high bank of the Jumna, it is separated from the actual bed of the stream by a mile of sand, and the ferry which connects it with Sakariya on the opposite bank is therefore very little used. Four miles lower down the stream is the bridge-of-boats at Brindaban, the road leading to it skirting for some distance the margin of a large morass, called the Moti jhil. A metalled road, eight miles long, connects the place with Raya sta tion on the Cawnpore-Achnera railway; and at the end of this road in Mat is a comfortable inspection house belonging to the district board. Though it gives its name to a tahsil, Mat is a small and unimportant place. It contains a police station, pound, vernacular secondary school and post-office, the tahsil and police station standing within the enclosure of an old mud fort. Though there is no grove of trees to justify the title, Mat is still designated one of the Upabans, and is a station in the Ban jatra, the name being derived from the milk-pails (Mat) here upset by Krishna in his childish sports. At Chhahiri, a little higher up the stream, is the sacred wood of Bhandirban with a small modern temple, rest-house and well in the centre. A large fair, chiefly attended by Bengalis, is held here on the ninth of the dark fortnight of Chait, and is called the Gwal-mandala. The township is divided into two parts, called Raja and Mula and was administered for some years under Act XX of 1856: but the provisions of the Act were subsequently withdrawn. The area of the revenue mauza is 5,149 acres and it is assessed to a demand of Rs. 7,390, the zamindars being Rajputs, Brahmans, Banias and Musalmans. The popula tion which in 1881 numbered 2,550 persons had increased to 3,882 at the last enumeration in 1901. Of the whole number 1,736 were females; Hindus numbered 3,346 and Musalmans 519, there being 17 persons of other religions. The predominant caste among the former was that of Rajputs. Market is held on Thursdays.

GUTAHRA, Tahsil SADABAD.

This large village is situated in the south-east of the district, close to the Agra border, in 27°23'N. and 78°8'E. It lies six miles south-east from Sadabad and thirty-two miles from the dis­trict headquarters. The total area of the village is 2,527 acres, and the revenue demand is Rs. 6,900. The place was founded by one Sheoraj, a Gahlot Rajput from Chitor, who ejected the Ahirs then in possession. The population has increased from 1,985 persons in 1881 to 2,595 persons in 1901; and the Hindu popu­lation numbers 2,372 souls as against 223 Muhammadans. Rajputs still own a portion of the estate, but much of it has passed to Brahmans, Ahirs and Banias. Chamars are the predominant Hindu caste. The place contains an aided school and is also known by the name of Khera Ali Saiyid.

HASANPUR, Tahsil MAT.

This is a large village situated in 27°50'N. and 77°47'E., near the boundary of the Aligarh district, sixteen miles from Mat, seven miles due east of Nohjhil and twenty-two miles from the city of Muttra. The village was founded in the seventeenth century by a Jat of Barauth, named Hansa. There is still a gateway in it called Chaukhat Hansa, and an old khera or deserted site bears the name Mahona. In 1901 Hasanpur had a population of 2,240 souls, 1,837 being Hindus, 135 Muhammadans and 268 of other religions, for the most part Aryas. The number of the inhabitants has increased from 1,910 in 1881. The total area of the village is 2,232 acres and it is assessed to a revenue demand of Re. 4,655, the zamindars being Jats. Hasanpur Contains both a boys' and a girls' school.

HATANA, Tahsil CHHATA.

Hatana lies in 27°52'N. and 77°26'E., in the extreme north of the district near the Gurgaon border. The metalled road to Dehli and the Agra-Dehli Chord railway run about two and a half miler to the west of the village, and about a mile and a half to the east flows the Agra canal. The village has an area of 3,418 acres, assessed to a revenue demand of Rs. 5,237, the zamindars being a large community of Jats of the Sorot subdivision. The population increased from 2,117 in 1881 to 2,718 in 1901: of the latter 2,640 were Hindus and 78 were Muhammadans. Beyond the canal near Sessai lies the dahar or depression of Nandban, 365 bighas in extent. The latter is considered a hamlet of Hatana, but is really an offshoot of Sessai in Gurgaon. Here a temple of some size and very considerable local celebrity, dedicated to Lakshmi Narain, stands on the margin of an extensive lake faced on the temple side with masonry ghats. This is known as the Kshir Sagar or "Milky Sea."

JAIT, Tahsil MUTTRA.

Jait lies on the provincial road from Muttra to Dehli, in 27°35'N. and 77°38'E., at a distance of nine miles from Muttra. Unmetalled roads lead from it to Shergarh, Brindaban, Ral and Sahar. The village has a total area of 3,569 acres and is assessed to a demand of Re. 4,419, the proprietor being Kunwar Sarat Chandra Sen, the heir of the Lala Babu, to whom the proprietary rights were transferred in 1811 A.D. for a very small considera­tion. The population in 1881 numbered 1,512 souls; but in 1901 the number had risen to 2,291, of whom 2,145 were Hindus, 120 Musalmans and 26 of other religions. The predominant Hindu caste is that of Rajputs, who are for the most part of the Kachh­waha clan, the clan of Raja Jasraj of Kotah, the founder of the village. Until 1808 the village was included in the pargana of Sonsa and formed part of the jagir granted to Balla Bai, the wife of Daulat Rao Sindhia: it was resumed in that year. Jait possesses a police station, post-office, cattle-pound and an aided school.

JALESAR ROAD RAILWAY STATION, Tahsil SADABAD. Vide MANIKPIIR.

JARAU, Tahsil SADABAD.

This is a large agricultural village lying in 27°21'N. and 78°4'E., two miles east of the metalled road which runs past Sadabad to Agra, at a distance of seven miles from Sadabad. In 1881 it had a population of 2,123 souls, but this number had risen in 1901 to 2,635, 2,484 being Hindus, 148 Musal­mans and three persons of other religions. The village is said to have been founded in the fourteenth century by Dip Singh, a Chauhan Rajput from Baman; but, besides his decendants, Brahmans and Banias now own shares in the village. The total area of the estate is 3,221 acres; it is assessed to a reve­nue demand of Rs. 7,686. Market is held every Monday and Friday.

JAWARA, Tahsil MAT.

Jawara is a large village nearly four miles due east of Mat in 27°38'N. and 77°47'E. The village has an area of 4,295 acres and is assessed to a revenue of Rs. 11,468, the zamindars being a mixed community of Jats, the original proprietors, Banias, Brahmans and Bairagis. The old name of the place was Jhunagarh; and here is situated the sacred grove of Chandraban, named after the sakhi, Chandravati, and a Bairagi's cell under the tutelage of Balmakund. The trees in the grove are pilu, babul and pasendu, with a few large and venerable kadambs. Jawara possesses a primary school, and market is held every Monday and Friday in Nagla Bari, a hamlet of the village. Fairs are held in the village on the second and third day of the Holi festival, and there is a dargah of Mir Sahib Sheikh Saddu where people assemble every Wednesday and Saturday. The population has increased from 4,066 souls in 1881 to 4,631 souls in 1901, 4,361 being Hindus, 258 Musalmans and 12 of other religions. Jats are the numerically strongest caste, and at the Mutiny a pitched battle was fought between these Jats and those of Aira Khera, in which as many as 450 lives are said to have been lost.

JHUNDAWAI, Tahsil MUTTRA.

Jhundawai lies in the extreme south of the district in. 27°15'N. and 77°42'E., close to the Agra canal; it is sixteen miles distant in a direct line from the civil station of Muttra. It is a large village with an area of 2,990 acres and is assessed to a demand of Rs. 5,771, the zamindars being partly Jats and partly Kashmiri Brahmans, represented by Pandit Bishambar Nath. The place contains a primary school, but is otherwise one of no importance, and the population has somewhat decreased; for in 1881 there were 3,347 inhabitants whereas in 1901 the number had fallen to 3,039, of whom 2,861 were Hindus, 168 were Musal­mans and 10 of other religions.

KAMAI, Tahsil CHHATA.

This large village lies about four miles due west of Sahar, at a distance of ninteen miles from Muttra, in 27°38,N. and 77°26'E. It has a total area of 4,108 acres, assessed to a revenue demand of Rs. 5,000, and the population in 1901 numbered 2,612 persons, of whom 2,526 were Hindus, 80 Muhammadan and six of other religions. The village is owned by a large community of Jadon Rajputs, and is one of the stations in the Banjatra. The Ras Lila is celebrated here on the sixth day of the light half of Bhadon and the Phul Dol fair is kept on the fifth day of the dark half of Chait. The village contains a primary school, four small temples and three sacred ponds called Hari-kund, Baladeva­kand and Piri-pokhar.

KAMAR, Tahsil CHHATA.

The town of Kamar lies in 27°49N. and 77°21'E., at a distance of thirty-three miles from Muttra and six miles from Kosi. The village has an area of 3,544 acres, and the town, though still a considerable place with a large trade in cotton; was of much greater importance during the early part of the 18th century, when Thakur Badan Singh, the father of Raja Suraj Mal, married a daughter of one of the resident families. A walled garden outside the town contains some monuments of the lady's kinsmen, and in connection with it is a large masonry tank supplied with water brought by aqueducts from the surrounding rakhya or woodland. This is more than a thousand acres in extent, and according to the village computation is three kos long, including the village which occupies the centre. At a little distance is a lake with unfinished stone ghats, the work of Raja Suraj Mal; this is called Durvasakund. A temple of Suraj Mal's foundation, dedicated to Madan Mohan, is specially affected by all the jats of the Bahinwar pal, who are accounted its chelas or disciples, and assemble here to the number of 4,000 on the second day of the dark fortnight of Chait to celebrate the Phut Dol mela. In the town are several large brick mansions built by Chaudhris Jaswant Singh and Sita Ram, connections of Raja Suraj mal: but they are all in ruins.

Kamar was formerly administered under Act XX of 1856, but the provisions of the Act were withdrawn before 1891. In 1881 the town had a population of 3,771 persons: this fell to 3,458 in 1901. Of the whole number 3,262 were Hindus, 159 were Musalmans and 37 persons were of other religions. Jats are the predominant Hindu caste, and there are some Jains resi­dent in the place. It contains a school, and a weekly market is held on Mondays. Kamar is owned for the most part by a large community of Jats, and is assessed to a revenue demand of Rs. 4,679.

KANJAULI, Tahsil SADABAD.

A large agricultural village, eight miles south of Sadabad and thirty-two miles from Muttra via the metalled road and Sadabad. The village lies about two miles west of the provincial road from Sadabad to Agra, in 27°20'N. and 78°2'E. The area of the village is 2,007 acres and it is assessed to a revenue demand of Rs. 6,104, the proprietors being Jats. The population in 1881 was 2,644 persons, but in 1901 the number had increased to 3,193, of whom 3,004 were Hindus and 189 were Musalmans. The village contains a primary school, but is otherwise a place of no importance.

KARAB, Tahsil MAHABAN.

Karab lies on the metalled road from Raya to Baldeo in 27°28'N. and 77°48'E., at a distance of six miles from Mahaban and Raya, and fourteen miles from Muttra city via Raya. The village has an area of 3,121 acres and is assessed to a demand of Rs. 7,382. The original owners were Jats of the Hag got, but much of the property has passed into the hands of Brahmans, now represented by Bohra Gajadhar Singh. The village contains a primary school, and the market, which is held every Thursday, is the largest in the district for the sale of leather. The population in 1901 numbered 2,689 souls, of whom 2,577 were Hindus, 87 Muhammadans and 25 of other religions, Chamars being the numerically strongest Hindu caste.

KARAHRI, Tahsil MAT.

This village is situated in the centre of the tahsil, 27°44N and 77°47'E., at a distance of eight miles from Mat and eighteen miles from the city of Muttra. The area of the village is 2,724 acres and its revenue Rs. 6,453; while its population in 1901 was 3,096 souls, an increase of 275 persons over the figure of 1881. Of the whole number 2,685 were Hindus, 317 were Musalmans and 94 were of other religions, chiefly Aryas; and the predomi­nant Hindu caste was that of Chamars. The zamindars were once Dhakara Rajputs; but now most of the area has passed to Musalmans of Salimpur in Aligarh, Jais Rajputs, Jats and Banias. There are an old sarai, a ruined indigo factory, two; small temples and a primary school in the village; and markets are held in it every Tuesday and Friday, the latter day being-confined to the sale of cattle. A large orchard of mango, jamun, amla, labera and other trees forms one of the pleasantest camp­ing-grounds in the tahsil.

KHAIRA, Tahsil CHHATA.

This large village is situated in 27°42'N. and 77°27'E., four miles west-south-west from Chhata and twenty miles north-west from Muttra city. The name is said to be derived from khadira­ban, where there is a pond called Krishna-kund, the scene of an annual fair. It has two masonry ghats and the same Raja of Burdwan, who constructed the Pan Sarovar at Nandgaon, had commenced facing the whole of it with stone, but the work was stopped almost at the beginning by his death. On its margin is a temple of Baladeva with a handsome chhatri in memory of one Rup Ram, Bohra, built about 1845 by his widow. Another temple with the title of Gopinath is said to have been founded by the famous Todar Mal of Akbar's time. There are three other temples called respectively Madan Mohan, Darsan Bihari and Maha Prabhu, and two small lakes bearing the names of Bhawani and Chinta-Khori. In 1881 Khaira had a popu­lation of 2,629 souls, but in 1901 the number had risen to 3,253, of whom 3,092 were Hindus, 139 Muhammadans and 22 of other religions, chiefly Jains. The area of the village is 4,153 acres and the revenue demand on it amounts to Rs. 7,200, the zamindars as well as the numerically strongest Hindu caste being Ahiwasis. Thera is a primary school in the place, and market is held every Saturday.

KOSI, Tahsil CHHATA.

Kosi is the largest town in the Chhata tahsil and is situated in 27°48'N. and 77°26,E. on the Agra-Dehli road at a distance of twenty-eight miles from Muttra. The name is popularly supposed to be a corruption of kusasthali, another name for Dwarka. In 4confirmation of this belief it is pointed out that there are in Kosi places named Ratnakar Kund, Maya Kund, Bisakha Kund and Gomati Kund, just as there are at Dwarka.

The town lies in a low situation and is surrounded by hollows full of water. The Agra canal runs at a short distance from the site and the whole country round about is saturated with water. For many years it was found impossible to drain the place because there was no proper outfall, a drain leading into the canal being quite inadequate for the purpose. Conse­quently Kosi was very unhealthy, the death-rate from fever being particularly high, In 1903-4, however, the Kosi arterial drain was constructed by the Irrigation department, and at the same time the municipal board made a branch drain to join it: this has had the effect of reducing the water level in the hollows round the town. In the centre stands a large sarai, covering nine and a half bighas of land, with high embattled walls, corner kiosks and two arched gateways, all of stone. This is ascribed to Khwaja Itibar Khan, governor of Dehli in the reign of the emperor Akbar. The principal bazar lies between the two gateways. A large masonry tank, of nearly equal area with the sarai, dates from the same time, and is called the Ratnakar Kund, or more commonly the pakka talao. Three other tanks bear the names of Maha-kund Bisakha-kund and Gomati-kund: the last, near which the fair of the Phul Dol is held on the second of the dark fortnight of Chait, is accounted the most sacred and is certainly the prettiest spot in the town. The pond is of considerable size, but of very irregular shape and has a large island in the centre. There are two or three masonry ghats, constructed by wealthy traders of the town, and on all three sides of it there are numbers of small shrines and temples. A little beyond the site on the northern side, close to the canal and not far from the idgah is a tirath or place of pilgrimage called Mabhai, with a masonry tank and temple.

Kosi contains a first-class police station, a combined post and telegraph office, second-class branch dispensary and primary school. There is also a municipal bungalow available as a rest-house. The town was constituted a municipality in 1866, and has always been a flourishing market town. Market is usually held on Tuesdays and Wednesdays. The chief articles of traffic are food grains, cotton, cloth, cattle and ghi. As a cattle-mart Kosi is well known in this portion of India: animals come from all parts, especially the Punjab, and some 30,000 are annually bought and sold. The nakh-khas or cattle-market is of large extent and supplied with every convenience—a fine masonry well, long ranges of feeding troughs and so forth. The trade in cotton is extensive; and there are six cotton ginning mills and presses employing between them some 580 hands. The popula­tion of the town has considerably decreased since 1872: in that year the inhabitants numbered 12,770 persons. In 1881 the number had fallen to 11,231, and by 1891 there was a further decrease to 8,404. At the last enumeration in 1901 the popula­tion was returned at 9,565 souls of whom 4,577 were women. Classified according to religions there were 5,496 Hindus, 3,552 Musalmans, 470 Jains, seven Christians and 40 others of un­speefied religion. The Jains, or Saraogis as they are generally called, are an important community in the town. They have heres three temples, dedicated respectively to Padma Prabhu, Nem Nath and Arishtanemi. A festival is held at the temple of Nem Nath on the day after the full moon of Bhadon when water is brought for the ablution of the idol from a well in a garden at some distance. No processional or other displays however are permitted.

On May 31st, 1857, the rebels on their march to Dehli stopped at Kosi and, after burning down the customs bungalow and pillaging the police station, plundered the tahsil of the small sum of Rs. 150, which was all that they found there. The records were scattered to the winds but were to a great extent subsequently recovered. The towns-people and the inhabitants of the adjoining villages remained well affected and gave what help they could in maintaining order. As a reward for their good behaviour one year's revenue was remitted and a grant of Rs 50 was made to each lumbardar.

Kosi has now a station called after it on the Agra-Dehli Chord section of the Great Indian Peninsula railway. This has fostered the direct trade with Bombay, to which place most of the cotton is exported.

KOTBAN, Tahsil CHHATA.

Kotban lies at a distance of thirty-two miles from Muttra and four miles from Kosi, close to the Dehli road, in 26°51'N. and 77°25'E. The village has a total area of 2,943 acres and the zamindars are for the most part Jats, who hold it in bhaiyachara tenure, paying a revenue demand of Rs. 4,783. The village contains an aided school and a population of 2,175 persons, of whom 2,074 are Hindus and 101 Muhammadans. Kotban is the northern limit of the Banjatra. A pond bears the name of Sital-kund, and there is a temple of Sita Ram, also two large brick houses and a masonry tank constructed by Chaudhri Sita Ram, a con­nection of the Rajas of Bharatpur.

KURSANDA, Tahsil SADABAD.

Kursanda is rather a group of villages than a single village, which lie close to the Aligarh-Agra metalled road, three miles south of Sadabad and twenty-three miles east of Muttra, in 27°24'N. and 78°2'E. The village was first settled by a Jat of the Hags got Puran Chand, who bestowed part of the land on his family priest, Chandu Pande. Their descendants still hold the bulk of the village, which has an area of 4,541 acres and is assessed to a revenue demand of Rs. 15,994. Kursanda was the home of the outlaw Deo Karan, who plundered Sadabad in the Mutiny and was subsequently, along with Zalim of the same village, hanged for rebellion. The village contains a primary school and is an old market town of some importance, bazar days being Sundays and Thursdays. The population of the combined hamlets amounted to 5,625 souls in 1881, and in 1901 the number of the inhabitants had risen to 6,663, of whom 6,193 were Hindus, 382 Muhammadans and 88 of other religions, chiefly Jains. Jats are the numerically strongest Hindu caste.

MAGORRA, Tahsil MUTTRA.

This town lies in 27°24'N. and, 77°34'E., twelve miles west-south-west of Muttra and two miles north of the metalled road to Bharatpur. The real name of the place is Mangotla, and it was, both under the Mughals and the Jats, the head of a revenue subdivision: it is also reputed to be a place of great antiquity. After being long deserted it was resettled by a family of Tomar Rajputs who divided it into four estates, which they called after their own names—Ghatam, Ram, Ajit and Jajan. These four pattis are now to all intents and purposes distinct estates with the Magorra bazar as their common centre, and there is no such mauza as Magorra. The population of the united township in 1901 was 4,759 persons, 4,445 being Hindus, 312 Muhammadans and two of other religions. Jats are the numerically strongest Hindu caste, and the zamindars are a mixed community of Jats, Banias and Brahmans. The total area of the pattis that form the township of Magorra is 4,359 acres and the revenue demand is Rs. 5,945. A weekly market is held every Thursday, and there is a primary school in the place, besides a railway station on the Nagda-Muttra railway.

MAHABAN, Tahsil MAHABAN

The headquarters town of the tahsil of the same name lies in 25°27'N. and 77°45'E. near the left bank of the Jumna. It is distant some six miles from Muttra on the metalled road to Sadabad, and may be approached either by the railway bridge near Muttra city or by the bridge-of-boats over the river on the direct road, some two miles further south.

Though the country in its neighbourhood is now singularly bare the name Mahaban denotes that there must have been at one time a wood in the loeality; and so late as the year 1634 A.D., the emperor Shahjahan ordered a hunt here and killed four tigers. The connection between Muttra and Mahaban has always been of a most intimate character; for, according to the legend, Krishna was born at the one and cradled at the other. Both places too make their appearance in history together, having been sacked by Mahmud of Ghazni in 1018 A.D. From the effects of this catastrophe it would seem that Mahaban was never able to recover. It is casually mentioned by Minhaj as one of the gathering places for the imperial army sent by the emperor Altamsh against Kalinjar in 1234 A.D. and the emperor Babar incidentally refers to it, as, if it were a place of importance still, in the year 1526 A.D. At the present day, however, though it is the seat of a tahsili, it can scarcely be called more than a considerable village. One or two large private residences have been built since 1870 with fronts of carved stone in the Muttra style; but the temples are all exceedingly mean and of no antiquity. The largest and also the most sacred is that dedicated to Mathura­nath, but it is only built of brick and plaster. There are two other small shrines of some interest: in one the demon Trinavart is represented as a pair of enormous wings overhanging the infant god; the other bears the dedication of Maha Mall Rae "the great champion prince," a title given to Krishna.

A great part of the town is occupied by a high hill, partly natural, partly artificial, where stood the old fort. This is said to have been built by the same Rana Katira of Mewar to whon is ascribed also the fort at Jalesar. According to one tradition he had been driven from his own country by the Musalmans and took refuge with the Raja of Mahaban, by name Digpal his son Kant Kunwar married Digpal's daughter, and apparently succeeded to his father-in-law's dominions. He made a grant of the whole township of Mahaban to his family priests, who were Sanadh Brahmans; their descendants bear the title of chaudhri and still own shares in Mahaban known as thok chaudhriyan. The fort was recovered by the Muhammadans in the reign of Ala-ud-din by Sufi Yahya of Meshed, who intro­duced himself and a party of soldiers inside the walls in litters disguised as Hindu ladies who wished to visit the shrines of Shiam Lala and Rohini. The Rana was killed, and one-third of the town was granted by the sovereign to Sufi Yahya. The place where he was buried is shown at the back of the Chhathi Palna, but is unmarked by any monument. The share granted to him is still owned by his descendants and is known as thok Saiyidat.

The shrine of Shiam Lala still exists as a mean little cell, perched on the highest point of the fortifications on the side which looks towards the Jumna. It is believed to be the spot where Jasoda gave birth to Maya, or Joganidra, substituted by Vasudeva for the infant Krishna. But by far the most interest­ing building is a covered court called Nanda's palace, or more commonly the Assi-Khamba, i.e., the eighty pillars. In its present form it was erected by the Muhammadans in the time of Aurangzeb out of old materials to serve as a mosque, and, as it now stands, it is divided, by five rows of sixteen pillars each, into four aisles or rather into a centre and two narrower side asiles, with one broad outer cloister. These columns were certainly sculptured before the sack of Mahaban in 1018, and it is possible that they are the wreck of several different temples. The Bud­dhist character of the building or buildings which supplied the columns is decided by the discovery of Buddhist remains let into parts of the building. Krishna's reputed cradle, a coarse struc­ture, covered with calico and tinsel, still stands in the pillared hall, while a dark blue image of the sacred child looks out from a canopy against the wall. The churn from which he stole his foster-mother's butter is shown, and consists of a carved stone in which a long bamboo is placed, while a spot in the wall is pointed out as the place where the sportive milk-maids hid Krishna's flute. In addition to the steady stream of devotees from all parts of India, the pillared hall is resorted to by Hindu mothers from the neighbouring districts for their purification on the sixth day after childbirth, whence the building derives its local name of the Chhatthi Palna, or place of the Chhatthi Puja, i.e.,"the sixth day of worship." Mahaban was doubtless the site of some of those Buddhist monasteries which the Chinese pilgrim Fa-Hian distinctly states existed in his time on both sides of the river; and the town is probably the site intended by the Kliso­boras or Clisobora of Arrian and Pliny.

Mahaban has been administered under Act XX of 1856 since the year 1859. It has an annual income of Rs. 1,150 which is raised by house assessment in the usual way, and expended in the maintenance of extra police, a small conservancy staff and in the carrying out of small improvements. The popula­lation has steadily decreased of late years: in 1872 it numbered 6,930, but at the last enumeration in 1901, the number of inhabitants was returned at 5,523, of whom 2,640 were women. Classified according to religion there were 3,711 Hindus, 1,791 Musalmans, and 21 others. The town has a police station, cattle-pound, middle-vernacular school, and a post-office. A weekly market is held on Wednesdays. The Village Sanitation Act (U. P. Act II of 1892) is in the force in town.

MAHABAN Tahsil

Mahaban tahsil which is conterminous with the pargana of the same name lies between the parallels of 27°14' and 27°41' north latitude and 77°41' and 77°57' east longitude. The tahsil lies wholly to the east of the Jumna river which forms its boun­dary on the west and south; tahsil Mat is on the north, tahsil Sadabad on the south-east, and parganas Gorai and Mursan of the Iglas and Hathras tahsils of the Aligarh district are on the north-east. The tahsil is somewhat irregular in shape. It narrows to a point on the extreme north, where it runs wedge-like between parganas Mat and Gorai; and in the extreme south it juts out into two narrow promontories, near Akos and Nera, which are almost encircled by the Jumna. In the centre the pargana widens considerably and opposite the city of Muttra it reaches its maximum breadth of fourteen miles. Its maximum length from Nimgaon to Sehat is thirty-two miles, or nearly two and a half times its greatest breadth. The most striking physical feature that distinguishes the tahsil from other parganas situated in the Doab further east is the fact that it borders the windings of the Jumna river for at least fifty miles. For a distance varying from one to three miles inland from the high banks of the stream the effect of the river on the character of the country is most marked. This belt of country is uneven in surface, broken up either by ravines or obtrusive sand-hills. The ravines do not here run in an unbroken chain along the whole course of the stream but often entirely disappear, giving place to the sand-hills which are a more common feature of the landscape higher up the river; while in those parts where these sandhills are most developed the ravines never extend far inland and are nowhere very deep, rugged or intricate. Thus from Panigaon to Muttra city, where for a distance of six miles the river sweeps in an outward curve from the Mahaban bank, there are no ravines of any consequence, but a series of sandhills instead; while on the opposite side, along the road from Muttra to Brindaban, the ravines are both deep and extensive. After the Muttra railway bridge is passed the curve of the river changes, and ravines begin to appear in Gopalpur. These get wider and deeper as Gokul is approached; but beyond Gokul the river takes a sudden bend outwards, and in that bend the soil is a pure drifting sand. Beyond this bend the curve of the river again turns inwards with the result that ravines are found at Jogipur, Nabi­pur and Nurpur; next comes the loop of Sherpur and Bassi with its heavy sand, followed in turn by the most marked inward curve in the pargana. This extends from Bassi to Nagla Azim, and in it extensive ravines, the worst in the tahsil, are formed. This belt of sand and ravines is for the most part uncultivated, and exercises but little influence on the general rent-rate of the pargana. It is valuable for grazing purposes, as some of the ravines are wooded with scrub jungle, and in the sandy tracts sarpat grass grows in profusion. As soon as the zone influenced by the river is passed the country becomes level and uniform in surface, similar in almost every respect to the tahsil of Sadabad. The prevailing soil is good piliya or light loam. As in Sadabad isolated tracts of bhur or sand occur oven in this inland por­tion, but they are on the whole of comparatively small area. If the conventional soils demarcated at the last settlement be divided among the natural soils that most closely correspond to them, 78 per cent. of the cultivated area in the upland is piliya, 14 per cent. is bhur, 7 per cent. is puth and one per cent. is tarai. Owing to the continuous action of the river the area and conformation of the Jumna valley or khadar land change yearly, as well as the proportion of it under cultivation. The soil is all alluvial and, as a large portion of it depends on the nature of the deposit left by the yearly flood, it varies in quality from year to year. The higher fields under the bangar cliff are generally of firmer soil and of better quality than those which are subject to inundation.

As the total area is thus apt to vary from year to year a better idea of the conformation of the tahsil will be gained from an average taken over a series of years than from the statistics of a single year. Thus for the five years ending in 1907 the total area amounted on an average to 153,697 acres or 240.1 square miles. Of this only 12,199 acres or 7.93 per cent. were recorded as barren waste, including, besides the land unfit for cultivation, that which was covered with water or with sites, roads, buildings and the like. The culturable area out of cultiva­tion amounted to 19,209 acres or 12.49 per cent., well over half or 11,333 acres being returned as old fallow. During the same period the area under the plough averaged 122,288 acres or 79.56 per cent. of the whole, a higher proportion than in any other tahsil except Sadabad. Of this acreage 37,254 acres on the average were irrigated. Cultivation is close and good, and irrigation is extensively practised; but the area twice-cropped within the year averages only 12,101 acres or 9.88 per cent. of the cultivation, a smaller percentage than in any other tahsil except Sadabad. For many years the Mahaban and Sadabad tahsils were remark able for the amount of irrigation carried on from wells; but the continuous fall in the spring level from the famine of 1877-78 onwards and the increasing brackishness of the water in the wells which became alarming after the famine of 1896-97 seriously curtailed the available supply and resulted in a diminu­tion of the area so irrigated. Since the opening of the Mat branch extension of the canal however, at the end of 1903, a marked improvement has taken place; and, of the total area watered during the five years ending in 1907, 17,648 acres have on an average been watered from the canal as against 19,557 served by wells. It is probable that as irrigation from the canal develops wells will be to a large extent displaced by the canal. At the same time the spring level in the wells will probably rise and the quality of the water will be improved. Another effect of canal irrigation will be to check the growth of the weed baisuri, which is prevalent in the tract extending from Raya on the north-west to Bisawar in Sadabad on the south-east. The kharif is the principal harvest and averages some 78,083 acres as against 55,503 acres sown in the rabi. The chief crops grown are juar, cotton and bajra, alone or mixed with arhar, in the autumn, and barley, alone or in combination with gram, and wheat in the spring. Small areas are devoted to maize, guar or khurti, moth, gram and peas.

The excellence of the cultivation in Mahaban is almost entirely due to the presence of the careful and industrious Jat husbandmen. These form about half the whole agricultural population; the other chief cultivating castes being Chamars, Brahmans, Rajputs, Ahirs, Barhais and Gadariyas. In 1907-08 proprietors as such held 16.23 per cent. of the holdings area, occupancy and ex-proprietary tenants 31.08 per cent., and tenants­at-will 51.28 per cent., the small remainder being rent-free. Mahaban contains 201 villages, at present divided into 736 mahals. Of the latter 124, representing 13.02 per cent. of the area of the tahsil, are in the hands of single landholders, 109 or 10.16 per cent. are held in joint zamindari, 209 or 23.62 per cent. in perfect pattidari, and 246 or 45.08 per cent. in imperfect patti­darri tenure; while six or less than one per cent. are recorded as bhaiyachara. The rest of the tahsil, 7.28 per cent. comprised in 42 mahals, is held revenue-free. Jats own 50,600 acres or just one-third of the pargana, and are closely followed by Brahmans with 44,632 acres or 29 per cent. After them come Banias 25,020, and Musalmans, 6,306 acres. The largest proprietor in the tahsil is Bohra Gajadhar Singh of Jagdispur in Mahaban who owns portions of 32 villages assessed to a revenue demand of Rs. 28,690. Ten whole villages and parts of four others are held by Raja Datt Prasad Singh of Mursan who pays revenue to the extent of Rs. 6,389; while Babu Kalyan Singh of Muttra holds portions of eight villages assessed in all to Rs. 3,900. The wealth­iest proprietors of the Bania caste are those residing at Raya. The head of the family is Lala Radha Ballabh, an honorary magistrate. Among the Musalmans the Saiyids of Mahaban take the first place, having claims to an ancient and honourable pedigree.

In 1881 the tahsil had a population of 116,829 souls, and since that time the total has steadily increased. At the folio wing enumeration of 1891 the number had risen to 133,488, while in 1901 there were 136,566 inhabitants, of whom 62,520, were females. The average density is 569 persons to the square mile—a higher figure than in any other tahsil of the district except Sadabad and Muttra, in the latter of which the rate is swollen by the inclusion of a large city population. Classified according to religions there were 126,655 Hindus, 8,973 Musalmans, 582 Christians, 195 Jains, 158 Aryas and three Sikhs. Jats are the most numerous Hindu caste, numbering 32,842 persons, while after them come Brahmans, 23,150. Chamars, 17,915 and Banias, 8,704. Other castes with over two thousand members apiece are Gujars, Bairagis, Lodhas, Koris, Barhais, Nais, Kumhars and Rajputs. The last named are fewer in Mahaban than in any other tahsil of the district, and of the clans specified at the census the best represented were Chauhans and Gahlots. On the other hand converted Rajputs formed the most numerous subdivision of the Muhammadan population, and were followed by Qassabs, Sheikhs and Julahas. The tahsil is mainly agricultural in character and there is no commercial or industrial centre in it, practically the entire population being dependent for its live­lihood on agriculture or the trade in agricultural produce.

There are four towns in the tahsil which are administered under Act XX of 1856. Mahaban is the headquarters of the tahsil establishment; Gokul and Baldeo are important religious centres, and Raya is a township and market town, situated on the Cawnpore-Achnera railway. Besides these there are some large and important villages, such as Wairni, Pachawar, Akos, Daghaita, Barauli, Karab and Sahora, which are agricultural estates containing over two thousand inhabitants. Lists of the markets ,fairs,schools and post-offices will be found in the appendix.

The communications of Mahaban are equal to its need .The metalled roads from Muttra to Sadabad and Hathras run from west to east across it from the railway bridge at Mattura city. From Raya a metalled road runs north to Mat, and there are second-class unmatelled roads to Baldeo and Sadabad, and a sixth class road direct to Mahaban. Other unmatelled roads run direct from Mahaban to Agra past Barauli and Nera, and from Baldeo to Kanjauli in Sadabad where the Aligarh-Agra metelled road is met. Besides the railway bridge at Muttra which ensures communication at all seasons of the year, the passage of the Jumna is effected by a bridge-of-boats in the hot and cold weather at gokulghat on the direct road to Mahaban, and by ferries at Koila, Basai, Lahroli, Tatrauta and Kanjauli, the ferries in the three last cases being worked from the Muttra side.

The early history of the tahsil is bound up with that of the district and has been sufficiently set fourth in chapter V. In the days of Akber, Mahaban was one of the 33 mahals of sarkar Agra. In addition to its present area, it then contained the present paragna of Mat and a part of paragna Sadabad. Immediately after the cession in 1803 it was attached to the Aligarh district, and was one of the paragna held in farm by Thakur Daya Ram of Hathras until 1808. In 1815, on the constitution of the sub-collectorate of Sadabad, it became a part of it and continued so until, in 1824,Sadabad was raised to the rank of an independent district. In 1832 it became a part of the newly formed Muttra district. Since then its boundaries have been enlarged by the addition of tappas Raya and Sonai, formerly recognized as two district subdivisions; taluqas Ar lashkarpur, Madim and Sonkh, with three villages besides from paragna Mursan; nine villages from Mat, two villagas from Sadabad; and one village from Aligarh.

For administrative purpose the tahsil constitutes a subdivision in the charge of a full-powered officer on the district staff. In police matters the jurisdiction is divided between the police station of Mahaban , Raya and Baldeo; while there are also bodies of town police at Mahaban, Gokul, Baldeo and Raya.

MAJHOI, Tahsil CHHATA.

Majhoi is an agricultural village of no great size in 27°52'N. and 77°35'E., on the banks of the Jumna, twenty-eight miles north from Muttra and nine miles east-north-east from Kosi. With the latter place it is connected by an unmetalled road, and there is a ferry over the river which is annually leased by the dis­trict board. The population of the place has declined from 657 souls in 1881 to 412 souls in 1901. The Hindu inhabitants num­bered 404 persons, the Muhammadans seven and there was one Jain. The predominant Hindu caste is that of Gujars, who were originally the proprietors of the village; but it was confiscated at the Mutiny for rebellion and conferred on Raja Gobind Singh of Hathras. The present owner is Kunwar Mahendra Pratap Singh, the adopted son of Raja Har Narain Singh, the heir of Raja Gobind Singh. The village has a total area of 2,132 acres and pays a revenue demand of Rs. 1,000. Two large baghs in it commemorate the names of Chaina and Serhu, two members of the Gujar community; and there are two old sati tombs here. Majhoi contains a police station, post-office and primary school; the last is maintained from funds contributed by Kunwar Mahendra Pratap Singh and is a large one. Two small fairs are held in honour of Debi on the eighth day of the light half of Chait and the corresponding day of the light half of Kuar.

MANIKPUR, Tahsil SADABAD

This is a small village in the extreme east of the district, distant thirty-three miles from Muttra and nine miles from Sadabad. It lies in 27°27'N. and 78°11'E., and is only of importance because it contains the railway station on the East Indian railway which goes by the name of Jalesar Road. The population of the village in 1901 was 263 persons, to which must be added 38 for the population of the railway station, making 301 in all. Of this number 252 were Hindus, 43 Musalmans and six were Jains. Jats are the numerically strongest Hindu caste. There is a post-office at the station.

MAT, Tahsil MAT.

The headquarters town of the tahsil lies in 27°36'N. and 77°48'E., at a distance of twelve miles from Muttra. Though it stands immediately on the high bank of the Jumna, it is separated from the actual bed of the stream by a mile of sand, and the ferry which connects it with Sakariya on the opposite bank is therefore very little used. Four miles lower down the stream is the bridge-of-boats at Brindaban, the road leading to it skirting for some distance the margin of a large morass, called the Moti jhil. A metalled road, eight miles long, connects the place with Raya sta­tion on the Cawnpore-Achnera railway; and at the end of this road in Mat is a comfortable inspection house belonging to the district board. Though it gives its name to a tahsil, Mat is a small and unimportant place. It contains a police station, pound, vernacular secondary school and post-office, the tahsil and police station standing within the enclosure of an old mud fort. Though there is no grove of trees to justify the title, Mat is still designated one of the Upabans, and is a station in the Ban jatra, the name being derived from the milk-pails (Mat) here upset by Krishna in his childish sports. At Chhahiri, a little higher up the stream, is the sacred wood of Bhandirban with a small modern temple, rest-house and well in the centre. A large fair, chiefly attended by Bengalis, is held here on the ninth of the dark fortnight of Chait, and is called the Gwal-mandala. The township is divided into two parts, called Raja and Mula and was administered for some years under Act XX of 1856: but the provisions of the Act were subsequently withdrawn. The area of the revenue mauza is 5,149 acres and it is assessed to a demand of Rs. 7,390, the zamindars being Rajputs, Brahmans, Banias and Musalmans. The popula­tion which in 1881 numbered 2,550 persons had increased to 3,882 at the last enumeration in 1901. Of the whole number 1,736 were females; Hindus numbered 3,346 and Musalmans 519, there being 17 persons of other religions. The predominant caste among the former was that of Rajputs. Market is held on Thursdays.

MAT Tahsil.

The present tahsil of Mat comprises the old tahsil of Noh­jhil and a portion of the villages which originally formed tahsil Mat. It is the north-eastern tahsil of the district and lies between the parallels of 27°35' and 27°58'N. and 77°31' and 77°50' E., being bounded on the north and east by the district of Aligarh, on the south by tahsil Mahaban and on the west by the river Jumna. In one place, however, namely the village of Jahangirpur, the river does not form the boundary of the tahsil, for, when a sudden change of the stream cut the alluvial land of that village in half, the portion that became attached to the Muttra tahsil was awarded to Mat. Its extreme length from Pipraoli in the south to Chaukara on the north is 28 miles, and the average breadth is about eight miles. The tahsil is thus a long narrow subdivision with a large river frontage. Except from Bhadaura southwards, however, the ravines that flank the river are nowhere deep or rugged, and the soil, which is soft and yield­ing, presents but little impediment to the force of the stream, Consequently several depressions have been formed in the surface, which must have at one time been beds of the river. These depressions have already been described in Chapter I and need not here be recapitulated. The only stream in the tahsil besides the Jumna is a tiny rivulet known as the Pathwaha: This takes its rise in the Bulandshahr district and has a stream only in the rainy season; but before it joins the Jumna below Barauth it runs through a considerable valley, the sides of which are marked by a system of raviny land and suggest either that the stream was once of greater dimensions than it is now or was affected by a back-wash from the Jumna. As a result of the vagaries of the river in past times, light and sandy soil prevails in Mat. In the north of the tahsil, especially west of the Pathwaha, the lines of sand rise twenty or thirty feet above the general level of the country and form one of its chief features. One system of sand-hills starts from the edge of the Nohjhil depression near Mani­garhi and passes into the Aligarh district; while another leaves the same depression near Nurpur and runs north to Awa Khera and thence north-east to Mithauli. There is a net-work of sand-hills near the depression which runs from Nohjhil to Barauth, and lines of similar soil stretch from Noh to Firozpur, along the right bank of the Pathwaha, and along the edge of the cliff in Baghara and Barauth and in places down the whole length of the tahsil. Another system commences in Nasithi on the south, passes north to Khayamal and is connected with the depression near Mat; while there is a distinct series at Hasanpur and Naoli. The prevailing soil throughout is a light sandy loam, in the composi­tion of which sand predominates over clay; but in almost all the villages there are larger or smaller veins of a richer, firmer soil, which equals dumat in its productiveness. In some villages in the south of the tahsil this richer soil is nearly as frequently found as the poorer; but in the north this is rarely the case, and the firm loam in these villages takes the place of tarai land in the loam villages, except that from the more porous nature of the soil the surface water drains off easily and the autumn crops are rarely injured. In a very few places does the river flow directly under the upland cliff; and the khadar land is everywhere extensive. This land is purely alluvial and varies from a sticky clay to a rich dumat, with here and there some tracts of sand. Generally the soils of the pargana do not differ from those found elsewhere and are capable of classification under the same heads as in the other tahsils. But there is a large number of local names in use particularly with reference to the soils found in the old Noh lagoon. Thus the hard red loam near the ravines is called piraunda; while the old sand banks of the river are known as magro. The soils found in the old river beds them-selves are called by a variety of names such as tari, dabua, jhawar, kunda, jhada, kil and khapra; while the general soil of the jhil is chiknot or slippery earth, a pure clay, in some villages also called bhabra. In the upland or bangar area of the tahsil, however, some 78 per cent. of the cultivated area at last settle­ment was classed as piliya or light loam, 10 per cent. as bhur, 8 per cent. as puth, and 3 per cent. as tarai, the remainder being rakar in the ravines.

Owing to changes in the course of the Jumna the area of the tahsil changes somewhat from year to year. For the five years ending in 1907 the total area on an average was returned at 142,506 acres or 223 square miles. Of this, 10,240 acres or 7.18 per cent. were recorded as barren, this head including, besides the land unfit for cultivation, that which is covered with water or is occupied by roads, sites, buildings and the like. The culturable area out of cultivation amounted to 26,344 acres or 18.48 per cent. of the tahsil, old fallow accounting for 18,346 acres or 12.87 per cent. For the same period the area under the plough averaged 105,922 acres or 74.32 per cent. of the total, this proportion being lower than that of any tahsil except Muttra. Just one-third of this or 35,282 acres was irrigated, wells accounting for 19,252 and canals for 15,983 acres. Before the opening of the Mat branch extension at the end of 1903, irriga­tion from canals was confined to a few villages in the extreme north; but since 1904, there has been a great development of the area watered from canals and with it a diminution in that watered from wells. The area twice cropped within the year averages 13,772 acres or 13 per cent. of the cultivation, a higher proportion than that of any other tahsil in the district. The kharif is the principal harvest, averaging 61,645 acres as against 57,412 acres sown in the rabi. The chief crops grown in the autumn. are juar, cotton and bajra, alone or intermixed with arhar; but guar or khurti, maize and moth occupy a consi­derable acreage. In the spring over half the area sown is covered with barley or barley in combination with gram, and about three-fifths of the remainder is occupied by wheat.

The system of cultivation in the pargana is on the whole good. The chief cultivating castes are Jats, Brahmans, Chamars, Rajputs and Banias; while Musalmans, Barhais, Gadariyas and Mallahs are also found. In 1907-08 proprietors as such tilled 30.48 per cent. of the holdings area, occupancy and ex-proprie­tary tenants 20.37 per cent., and tenants-at-will 48.18 per cent., the small remainder being rent-free. Mat contains 157 villages, at present divided into 411 mahals. Of the latter, 73, represent­ing 13.56 per cent. of the whole tahsil, are in the hands of single landholders; 82 or 11.61 per cent. are owned in joint zamin­dari tenure; while 83 or 13.56 per cent. are held in perfect and 163 or 54.42 per cent. in imperfect pattidari. There are also four estates classed as bhaiyachara which account for 5.38 per cent. of the whole area, and the remaining six or a little over one per cent. are revenue-free. Jats are the largest pro­prietors with 46,726 acres or nearly 33 per cent., and after them come Brahmans, 37.017 acres; Banias, 19,344 acres; and Rajputs, 17,173 acres. Other landholding castes are Musalmans, Kayasths, Marwari Brahmans and Khattris. The largest land-lord in the tahsil is the temple of Dwarka Dhis at Muttra, which owns 18 whole villages and parts of 13 others, assessed to a revenue of Rs. 15,988, and there is no other important proprie­tor in the tahsil Two villages and one patti belong to the temple of Rangji at Brindaban; three villages and portions of three others to Raja Datt Prasad Singh of Mursan; and one village and two pattis to Babu Kalyan Singh of Muttra.

In 1881 Mat had a population of 95,446 persons. This fell to 89,451 in 1891, but rose to 97,370 at the last enumeration in 1901, 45,373 of the whole number being females. The average density is 437 persons to the square mile—a figure which is considerably below the district average. Classified according to religions there were 89,279 Hindus, 7,164 Musalmans, 591 Aryas, 330 Christians and six Jains. Jats are the. most numer­ous Hindu caste, numbering 20,140 persons, while after them come Chamars, 18,628; Brahmans, 13,965; Banias, 5,499; and Rajputs, 4,415. Other castes with over two thousand members apiece are Gadariyas and Barhais. The best represented of the Rajput clans are Jadons, Bachhals, Chauhans and Janwars. The chief Muhammadan subdivisions are converted Rajputs, Faqirs, Pathans, Sheikhs, Telis, Bhangis and Bhistis. The tahsil is almost wholly agricultural in character, practically the entire population being dependent for its livelihood on agriculture or the trade in agricultural produce. There are no towns in the tahsil, and but few places of any size or importance. Nohjhil is an old established place which was once the headquarters of a tahsil; Bajana is an old market town, and Surir possesses a police station; but none of these nor Mat itself can rank as more than large villages. There are some big agricultural estates, containing over 2,000 inhabitants, such as Arua and Hasanpur. Lists of the markets, fairs, schools and post-offices of the tahsil will be found in the appendix.

Owing to its extremely narrow width in proportion to length the tahsil is amply served by the road which running northwards from Mat splits into two branches at Akbarpur, one leading to Khair in Aligarh and the other to Nohjhil. Mat is connected with Brindaban by an unmetalled road and with Raya by a metalled road, eight miles long. Only four miles of it lie in Mat, however, and this is the only metalled road at present in the tahsil. The only other roads are those from Nohjhil to Shergarh with its continuation to Bajana and from Mat to Beswan. The passage of the Jumna is effected by means of several ferries, of which a list is given in the appendix; the most important are those at Shergarh and Brindaban.

In the days of Akbar the present tahsil of Mat was divided between the pargana of Nohjhil in the sarkar of Kol and the pargana of Mahaban in the sarkar of Agra. Immediately before the cession of the district in 1803, pargana Nohjhil formed part of the jagir of General Perron while Mat was hold by General Du Boigne. The former was first attached, as a tem­porary measure, to the Fatehgarh, and the latter to the Etawah, district; but as soon as the Aligarh district was constituted in 1804 both were incorporated in it. The following year they were farmed to Ranmast Khan who, in 1807, was outlawed and expelled by General Dickens for an attack on the village of Musmina. In 1824 both parganas were transferred to the Sada­bad and in 1832 to the Muttra district. There was some dis­affection in the parganas during the Mutiny, the rebels being led by one Umrao Bahadur, who was subsequently killed at Dehli. His estates, comprising some eighteen villages in all, were conferred on Seth Lakhmi Chand free of revenue for life. In 1861 the parganas of Nohjhil and Mat were amalgamated into one tahsil under the name of Mat, and no change has taken place in their composition since that year.

For administrative purposes the tahsil constitutes a subdivi­sion in the charge of a full-powered officer on the district staff. In police matters the jurisdiction is divided between the stations of Mat, Surir, Nohjhil and Raya.

MIRHAOLI, Tahsil SADABAD.

Mirhavali, Mirhaoli or Mindhaoli as it is indifferently called, lies eleven miles south-west of Sadabad in 27°19'N. and 77°58'E. It is a large agricultural estate with a total area of 4,120 acres and is assessed to a demand of Rs. 7,000, the zamindars also the predominant castes, being Jats and Brah­mans. The village was founded by one Kuki Rawat, a Jat, and has an aided school. In 1901 the population numbered 2,298 souls, of whom 2,228 were Hindus and 70 were Muham­madans.

MUTTRA City.

The celebrated city of Muttra, which gives its name to the district, is situated in 27°31' north latitude and 77°41' east longitude. It lies almost in the centre of the district, on the banks of the Jumna River, on the provincial road from Agra to Dehli, the distance to the former being 32 miles and to the latter place 89 miles. It has a railway station on the Agra-Dehli Chord section of the Great Indian Peninsula railway, which is 868 miles from Bombay via Itarsi; and on the Cawnpore-Achnera metre-gauge railway, which connects with the East Indian railway at Hathras junction, the distance to Calcutta being by this route 886 miles. Besides this, the city has recently been connected with Nagda junction on the Bombay, Baroda and Central India railway, by way of Kotah and Karauli, by a standard-gauge railway; and there is a metre-gauge branch from Muttra cantonment station on the Cawnpore-Achnera railway to Brindaban, which has a subsidiary station on the north of the town known as Muttra city. From the city, besides the Agra-Dehli road, roads radiate in all directions, those to Dig and Bharatpur in Bharatpur, to Hathras, to Brindaban, and to Gokul, Mahaban and Sadabad, being metalled; and that to Sonkh being unmetalled. In addition to being an important city, the place is also a cantonment for troops, a British cavalry regiment having been stationed here for many years. Muttra or Mathura has been an inhabited city from at least 600 years before Christ. The modern city, as seen to-day, is probably the third city which has occupied the site; and it has yielded many remains to the archaeologists, which have supplied impor­tant links in the history of northern India. As the history of the city depends largely on the interpretation of these remains, it is necessary at the outset to give an outline of the course of archaeological exploration at Muttra.

ARCHAEOLOGICAL DISCOVERIES AT MUTTRA

The first recorded discovery of sculpture at Muttra is that of the so-called Silenus obtained by Colonel Stacy in 1836 and now preserved in the Calcutta museum. In 1853 regular excavations were started.

By General Cunningham on the Katra, an elevated mound outside the city on the Dehli road, now surmounted by the red sandstone mosque built by Aurangzeb to take the place of the famous temple of Kesava Deva or Keso Rai. The excavations were continued in 1862 and numerous sculptural remains came to light, the most important among them being an inscribed Buddha image, three and a half feet high, now in the Lucknow museum. From an inscription it appears that this image was presented to the Yasa vihara or "Convent of Glory," in the Gupta year 230 or 550 A.D.; and we may conclude that the Katra site was once occupied by a Buddhist monastery of that name. In 1860, when the foundations were laid for a collector's court-house on the Jamalpur mound, one and a quarter miles south-east of the Katra, this locality proved to be another important Buddhist site. The site selected for this building was an extensive mound on the Agra road at the entrance to the civil station. It had always been regarded as merely the remains of a series of brick-kilns and had been further protected against exploration by the fact that it was crowned by a small mosque. This was for military purposes blown down during the Mutiny; and afterwards, when the rubbish had been cleared away and excavation for the foundations commenced, it was found to have been erected upon the ruins of a destroyed temple. Here thirty bases of pillars came to light, half of which were inscribed with dedicatory inscriptions. These bases pre­sumably belonged to a colonnade enclosing the inner courtyard of a Buddhist monastery, which, according to the inscriptions, was built in the year 47 of Kanishka's reign and during the reign of his son Huvishka. That this monastery still existed in the fifth century may be inferred from an inscription dated in the Gupta year 135 or 455 A.D. and from an inscribed standing Buddha image, both found on the same site and deposited in the Muttra museum. These were discovered when the mound was levelled by Mr. Hardinge. The same officer trenched the Kankali Tila, a mound a quarter of a mile south of the Katra, in which some sculptures, had been found by men digging for bricks. In 1869 Muttra was visited by Bhagwan Lal Indraji, who on this occasion made two important discoveries. The first was that of a life-size female statue, which he excavated at the Saptarshi Tila on the right bank of the river to the south of the city; and the second was the famous lion capital with its eighteen Kharoshtri inscriptions which throw so much light on the history of the northern Satraps who ruled in Muttra before the time of the Kushans. This was found in the same neigh­bourhood. In November 1871 General Cunningham resumed the excavation of the Kankali Tila which proved more prolific in sculptural remains than any of the Muttra sites. This is an extensive mound on the side of the Agra-Dehli road, between the Bharatpur and Dig gates of the city. General Cunningham here obtained many Jain images, partly inscribed, as well as portions of railings. The twelve inscriptions discovered by him range in date from the year 5 of Kanishka's reign to the year 98 in that of Vasudeva. To these may be added a large figure of an elephant, standing on the capital of a pillar, with an inscription dated in the year 39 of Huvishka's reign. Between the Katra and Kankali Tila there rises a high mound, named after the temple of Bhuteswar, at the back of which it is situated. On the top of this mound there stood once a large railing pillar carved with the figure of a female parasol-bearer over which is a curious bas-relief apparently referring to some Jataka. About the same time General Cunningham explored some of the Chaubara mounds. These are a group of some twelve or fourteen circular mounds situated about half a mile south-west of the Katra, at the tri-junction pillar of the villages of Muttra, Bakipur and Giridharpur. They are strewn with fragments of brick and stone and would all seem to have been stupas. In one of these mounds a golden relic casket, containing a tooth, was discovered in 1868; and later another yielded a second relic casket of steatite and some sculptures. Subsequent exploration of these mounds by Mr. Growse led to the discovery of numerous other sculptural remains, which were placed in the Muttra museum; and the same officer made numerous other discoveries, including the so-called Bacchanalian group which was obtained in 1873-4 outside the village of Pali Khera. In 1881-82 when General Cunningham re-visited Muttra in order to inspect the newly established museum, he discovered another sculpture no less re­markable for the classical influence it betrays. Its subject is Herakles Stranglin the Nemean lion. The last archaeological explorations at Muttra were carried out by Dr. Fuhrer between the years 1887 and 1896. His chief work was the excavation of the Kankali Tila in the three seasons of 1888 to 1891; but he explored also the Katra site. No account of his explorations is available, but a series of 108 plates were subsequently published under Dr. Fuhrer's supervision, illustrating the chief finds. When the provincial museum at Lucknow was opened in 1884 most of the sculptures that had gone to Allahabad were removed there, but some were left behind and these were returned and added to the local collection in the Muttra museum. The sculptures that had remained at Agra and the pieces that were excavated by Dr. Führer were all sent to Lucknow, which contains themost extensive collection of Muttra sculptures. The Calcutta museum contains 28 Muttra pieces, including the Silenus and Herakles strangling the Nemean Lion. The sculptures which were collected by Mr. Growse are nearly all preserved in the local Museum; and some others which had found their way to the Lahore museum and the Municipal museum at Delhi have been returned to Muttra.</ref>

THE BUDDHIST CITY OF MUTTRA

This resume of the course of archaeological discovery at Muttra is sufficient to show that the explorations have been very fertile; but they were carried out on very unsystematic lines; and, in the absence of plans, no information is forthcoming regarding the buildings to which the sculptures discovered belonged. The Chinese traveller, Hiuen Tsang, described the city and its more important buildings in 642 A.D.; and attempts have been made by both Cunningham and Growse to identify some of the Muttra sites with localities mentioned by Hinen Tsang. These results, however, have failed. Both authorities assumed that the Katra marks the centre of the ancient city, whereas the site of ancient Muttra is clearly indicated by an extensive elevation of the soil to the south-west of the town. Hence their identifications, based on a wrong location of the city, are inadmissible, and both the Upagupta monastery and the monkey tank near it, mentioned by Hiuen Tsang, have yet to be discovered. All that can be deduced from past explorations is the following. The Katra must have been the site of a Buddhist monastery named the Yasavihara which was still extant in the middle of the sixth century. It would seem that in the immediate vicinity there existed a stupa to which the Bhuteswar railing pillars belonged. Dr. Fuhrer mentions indeed in one of his reports that in digging at the back of Aurangzeb's mosque, he struck the procession path of a stupa bearing a dedicatory in scription. The Kankali Tila contained a Jain stupa, named "Voda thupa," and apparently of considerable age, for in Huvishka's reign its origin was ascribed to the gods. Dr. Fuhrer, moreover, speaks of two Jain temples found in his excavation of this mound. Evidently there flourished a Jain establishment here down to the Muhammadan period. But some sculptures said to have been found in or near the Kankali Tila are Buddhist. The Chaubara mounds represent a group of Buddhist stupas as is proved by the discovery of two relic caskets and railing pillars. One of these pillars, preserved in the Muttra museum, bears an undated inscription in Brahmi of the early Kushan type. The three pedestals found by Growse near one of the Chaubara mounds may have belonged to a temple; On the Jamalpur site there once stood a Buddhist monastery founded by Hnvishka in the year 47 of Kanishka's era and, no doubt, connected with a stupa as may be inferred from the discovery of railing pillars on this site. This Buddhist establishment also must have been still in a flourishing con dition in the middle of the fifth century as appears from the two inscribed Buddha images, one dated in the Gupta year 135 and the other undated, which were found here. The Arjunpura mound to the north-west of the Sitala Ghati seems to contain the remains of a monument or stupa of the Maurya period. Jain sculptures have been found on the site of the old fort, Sitala Ghati and in Rani-ki-mandi. Buddhist buildings are still to be discovered in the Dhruva and Saptarshi mounds

THE HINDU CITY OF MUTTRA KATRA

On the decline of Buddhism, Muttra acquired that character for sanctity which it still retains as the reputed birth-place of Krishna. The so-called Katra, of which frequent mention has been made in the preceding paragraph, is an oblong enclosure, 804 -feet in length by 653 feet in breadth.

AURANGZEB’S MOSQUEAND THE TEMPLE OF KESAVA DEVA

In its centre is a raised terrace, 172 feet long and 86 feet broad, upon which stands the mosque of Aurangzeb, occupying its entire length but only 60 feet of its breadth. About five feet lower is another terrace, measuring 286 feet by 268. The mosque is not in itself architecturally interesting; but there may still be observed, let into the Muhammadan pavement, some votive tables with Nagri inscriptions, dated sambat 1713 and 1720, corresponding to 1656 and 1663 A.D. This was the site of the famous temple of Kesava Deva destroyed in 1669 by Aurangzeb, who built the mosque over it. The plinth of the temple wall may be traced to this day at the back of the mosque and at right angles to it for a distance of 163 feet; but not a vestige of the superstructure has been allowed to remain. The temple was visited both by Bernier and Tavernier, the latter of whom has left us a description of it. "The temple is of such a vast size that, though in a hollow, one can see it five or six kos off, the building being very lofty and very magnificent. The stone used in it is of a reddish tint, brought from a large quarry near Agra……………………. It is set on a large octagonal platform, which is all faced with cut stone, and has round about it two bands of many kinds of animals, but particularly monkeys, in relief…………...The temple, however, only occupies half the platform, the other half making a grand square in front. Like other temples it is in the form of a cross, and has a great dome in the middle with two rather smaller at the end. Outside, the building is covered from top to bottom with figures of animals, such as rams, monkeys, and elephants, carved in stone; and all round there are nothing but niches occupied by different monsters ……………..

………The Pagoda has only one entrance, which is very lofty, with many columns and images of men and beasts on either side. The choir is enclosed by a screen composed of stone pillars, five or six inches in diameter……………… Out side, the screen is entirely closed." Tavernier was permitted to obtain a view of the idol from beyond the screen. He saw "as it were, a square altar, covered with old gold and silver brocade, and on it the great idol………….The head only is visible and is of very black marble, with what seemed to be two rubies for eyes. The whole body from the neck to the feet was covered with an embroidered robe of red velvet and no arms could be seen." At the time of its demolition the temple had been in existence only some fifty years, but it is certain that an earlier shrine or series of shrines, on the same site and under the same dedication, had been famous for centuries. In anticipation of Aurangzeb's raid the ancient image of Kesava Deva was removed by Rana Raj Singh of Mewar. The wheels of the chariot in which it was being conveyed away sank in the deep sand near the obscure village of Siarh on the Banas river, 22 miles north-east of Udaipur. As the chariot refused to be extricated, the image was set up on the spot and a temple built for it, round which has grown up the modern village of Nathdwara. The latter takes its name from the temple which is called Nath Ji. The image is the most highly venerated of all the images of Krishna. Tavernier says that that the temple of Kesava Deva was not held in such high veneration by the Hindus in his day as formerly, because the Jumna had changed its course and instead of flowing close to the temple, flowed half a league away; but it is extremely doubtful whether the Jumna changed its course in historical times, although traces of fluvial action dating from remote antiquity are unmistakeable.

MORDEN TEMPLE OF KESAVA DEVA

At the back of the Katra is the modern temple of Kesava Deva, a cloistered quadrangle of no particular architectural merit and, except on special occasions, little frequented in consequence of its distance from the main town.

POTARA KUND'

Close by is a large quadrangular tank of solid masonry, called the Potara kund, in which, as the name denotes, Krishna's baby-linen was washed. There is little or no architectural decoration, but the great size and massiveness of the work render it imposing. The soil, however, is very porous and the water in the tank, at all seasons except in the rains, almost dries up. A small cell on the margin of the tank, called indifferently Kara-garh, "the prison house," or Janum-bhumi, "the birth-place,” marks the place where Vasudeva and Devaki were kept in confinement and where their son Krishna was born. At the back of the Potara-kund and within the circuit of the Dhul-kot, or old ramparts of the city, is a very large mound (where a railway engineer had a house before the Mutiny) which would seem to be the site of some large Buddhist establishment.

BALBHADR KUND

South of the Katra and between it and the Kankali Tila, close to the Dehli road, is the tank known as the Balbhadr-kund. This is an old tank but is now in a ruinous condition; a fair is held near it on the full moon of Sawan, the feast of the Saluno. It was partially cleaned out and repaired as a relief work during the famine of 1877-78.

TEMPLE OF BHUTESWAR MAHADEVA

Overlooking this tank is the temple of Bhuteswar Mahadeva, which in its present form is a quadrangle of ordinary character with pyramidal tower and cloister built by the Marathas towards the end of the eighteenth century. In the earlier days of Brah manism, before the development of the Krishna cult, Bhuteswar was probably the special local divinity; and the site has probably been occupied by successive religious buildings from remote antiquity; possibly it was at one time the centre of the town of Muttra. In an adjoining orchard, called the Qazi's Bagh, is a small modern mosque, and in connection with it a curious square building of red sandstone. It now encloses a Muhammadan tomb and is a good specimen of the pure Hindu style of archi tecture, though the original purpose for which it was built is obscure. Close at the back of the Balbhadr-kund and the Katra is a range of hills of considerable elevation, commonly called Dhul-kot, literally "dust heaps," the name given to the accumulation of refuse that collects outside a city.

THE OLD CITY RAMPARTS

Some of these, however, are clearly of natural formation and perhaps indicate an old course of the Jumna or its tributaries. Others are the walls of the old city, which in places are still of great height. They can be traced in a continuous line from the Rangeswar Mahadeo on the Kans-ka-Tila, outside the Holi gate of new Muttra, across the Agra road to the temple of Bhuteswar and thence round by an orchard called the Uthaigiri-ka-bagh, where the highest point is crowned by a small Bairagi's cell, at the back of the Kesavadeva temple and between it and the Seth's Chaurasi temple to the shrine of Garteswar, " the God of the Moat," and so on to the Maha vidya hill and the temple of Gokarneswar near the Sravasti Sangam.

THE SRAVASTI SANGAM

The latter literally means the "Sravasti confluence," and implies the junction of two streams, the one flowing past the Katra and the other running in from the opposite direction, which find their way to the Jumna. The bed of the former is now partly occupied by the Dehli road, which, after leaving the great entrance to the Katra, passes the Kubja well, com memorating the miracle which Krishna wrought in straightening the hump-backed maiden who met him there. Near the turn to the right which leads into the city by the Brindaban gate is a Muhammadan burial-ground containing a large stone chhatri, similar to the one near the Idgah at Mahaban, which commemo rates Ali Khan, the local governor of that town. It is probably of the reign of Akbar, and is said to cover the ashes of a certain Khwaja.

OTHER OLD TEMPLES

A short distance further on is the Sravasti Sangam which is crossed by a handsome bridge, built by Seth Lakhmi Chand in 1849. To the right of it is a temple of Mahadeva which forms a very conspicuous object. It was built in the year 1850 by Ajodhya Prasad of Lucknow. Close by is a walled garden with another temple to the same divinity and a much frequented stone ghat on the river bank, all constructed at the cost of a money-lender, named Sri Gopal. The adjoining hill is called Kailas, and on its slope is the shrine of Gokarneswar who is represented as a giant seated figure, with enormous eyes and long hair and beard and moustaches. The figure is certainly of great antiquity and may have been originally intended to represent some Indo-Scythian king. In the same set of build ings is the shrine of Gautama Rishi. Opposite the Kailas hill, across the read, is an open plain, where the sports of the Ram Lila are celebrated on the festival of the Dasahra. Close by is a tank called the Sarasvati-kund, measuring 125 feet square. Owing to some fault in the construction it is almost always dry; though from an inscription on a tablet over the adjoining temple it was apparently restored in 1846.

TEMPLE OF MAHAVIDYA DEVI

At no great distance is the temple of Mahavidya Devi. The original image with that dedication is said to have been set up by the Pandavas; the present shrine, a sikhara of ordinary character in a small quadrangle, was built by the Peshwa towards the end of the eighteenth century. The hill on which it stands is ascended by a flight of masonry steps between 30 and 40 in number. In the courtyard which occupies the entire plateau, is a karil tree said to be of enormous age, under which are to be seen, among other fragments, a Buddhist pillar carved with the figure of Maya Devi under the sal tree, and a square stone box with a seated Buddha on each of its four sides. Two fairs are held here on the eighth of the light fortnight of Chait and Kuar. This is probably one of the oldest Buddhist sites.

THE JAI SINGHPURA

The Jai Singhpura khera, which over-looks the Sravasti Sangam and is separated by a deep ravine from the Mahavidya hill, is of great extent and has been tunnelled all over in search of bricks. Several Buddhist sculptures have been found at different times and were collected at a shrine of Chamund Devi, which is immediately under the khera at the back, till the best of them were removed by Mr. Growse to the Muttra museum. The khera is the site of Raja Sawai Jai Singh's old palace and below is an old ghat, called the Ganesh or Senapati ghat, built by one of Sindhia's generals at the end of the eight­eenth century.

THE SIVA TAL

The Siva Tal lies not far from the Kankali Tila: it is a spacious quadrangular basin of great depth and always well supplied with water. It is enclosed in a high boundary wall with corner kiosks and a small arched doorway in the centre of three of its sides. On the fourth side is the gau-ghat or slope for watering cattle with two memorial inscriptions facing each other, the one in Sanskrit and the other in Persian From these it appears that the tank was constructed by order of Raja Patni Mal of Benares in 1807 A.D. The design and execution are both of singular excellence; and the place is visited by a large number of bathers from the neighbourhood every morning, besides being the scene of an annual fair held on the eleventh of the dark fortnight of the month of Bhadon. The builder of this tank is further commemorated in Muttra by a large temple in the Manoharpur muhalla, bearing the title of Dirgha Vishnu, and another small shrine near the Holi gate of the city, which he rebuilt in honour of Vira-bhadr. His dwelling house is still standing on the Nakarchi Tila. His great ambi­tion was to rebuild the ancient temple of Kesava Deva, and with this view he had gradually acquired a considerable part of the site. But as some of the Muhammadans, who had occupied the ground for nearly two centuries, refused to be bought out and the law upheld them in their refusal, he was at last, and after great expense had been incurred, reluctantly obliged to abandon the idea.

KANS KA TILA

The Kans-ka-Tila hill which lies first outside the Holi gate of the modern city is supposed to be the hill from the summit of which the tyrant Kans was tumbled down by Krishna. It appears to be primarily of natural formation and hence to have been selected as the river boundary of the old wall. General Cunningham suggested that it might have been the site of the one of the seven great stupas mentioned by the Chinese pilgrims; but the old Buddhist city of Muttra probably lay to the north of the present city beyond the Katra; and the Kans ka-Tila has yielded no archaeological remains which associate it with Buddhist times.

THE MODERN CITY

The modern city stretches for about a mile and a half along the right bank of the Jumna, and from the opposite side has a very striking and picturesque appearance. From the water's edge rises a continuous line of stone ghats,, thronged in the early morning by crowds of bathers. Fine stone houses and temples line the narrow road, which passes along the ghats, and above these are seen, tier upon tier, the flat-roofed houses of the town on ground rising up from the river bank.

THE OLD FORT

The most prominent object that strikes the eye is the old Fort, or rather its massive substructure, for that is all that remains; this is called by the people Kans-ka-Qila. Whatever its legendary antiquity, it was rebuilt in historical times by Raja Man Singh of Jaipur, and at a later period was the occasional residence of Man Singh's more famous successor, the great astronomer, Sawai Jai Singh. He was entrusted by Muhammad Shah with the reformation of the calendar, and in order to attain accuracy he constructed five observatories. One of these was on the top of the Muttra fort, but it has now wholly disappeared. Shortly before the Mutiny the existing buildings were sold to the Government contractor, Joti Prasad, who destroyed them for the sake of the materials. The old hall of audience, which is outside the actual fort, is a handsome and substantial building with ranges of red sand-stone pillars; this has been converted into a school. The top of the fort commands an extensive view of the city.

THE VISRANT AND OTHER GHATS

About the centre of the river front is the most sacred of all the ghats: it marks the spot where Krishna sat down to take “rest" after he had slain the tyrant Kansa and hence is called the Visrant ghat. The small open court has a series of marble arches facing the water, which distinguishes it from all the other landing places. The river here swarms with turtles of enor­mous size, which are considered in a way sacred and generally receive a handful or two of grain from every visitor. On either side of this sacred spot, a number of minor ghats stretch up and down the river, those to the north being called uttar kot and those to the south dakhin kot. They are invariably represented as twenty-four in all, twelve in either set; but there is consider-able disagreement as to the particular names. The most autho­ritative list gives, on the north, Ganeshghat; Manasaghat; Dasa­svamedhaghat; Chakratirthaghat; Krishna-Gangaghat; Som­tirthaghat, more commonly called Vasudevaghat or Sheikhghat; Brahmalokghat; Ghantabharanghat; Dhara-patanghat; Sanga­mantirthaghat, otherwise called Vaikunthghat; Nava-tirtha­ghat; and Asikundaghat. To the south are Arimuktaghat; Visrantighat; Pragghat; Kankhalghat; Tindukghat; Surya­ghat; Chintamanighat; Dhruvaghat; Rishighat; Mokshaghat; Koti ghat; and Buddhghat. Most of these ghats refer in their names to well-known legends and are of no special historical or architectural interest. Two other ghats occupy far more conspicuous sites than any of the above. The first bears the name of Samighat, so called because it faces (samhne) the main street of the city; and the other is the Bengalighat, which lies close to the railway bridge and is so-called because it was built by the Gosain of the temple of Gobind Deva at Brindaban, the head of the Bengali Vaishnavas. A little below the Samighat is a small mosque and group of tombs commemorating a Mu­hammadan saint, Makhdum Shah Wilayat of Herat. They date apparently from the sixteenth century, and the architecture is essentially of Hindu design. Of other buildings near the ghats only two deserve mention. One of these is the temple of Mahadeva at the Gangs Krishnaghat, which has some very rich and delicate reticulated stone tracery; and the other is the small temple built on the Dhruva tila, or hill at the back of the Dhruvaghat: it was erected in sambat 1894 (1837 A.D.) in place of an older shrine, of which the ruins remain close by, dedicated to Dhruva Ji. This temple belongs to the Vaishnavas of the Nimbarak Sampradaya, who own the temple of Rasak Bihari at Brindaban.

THE SATI BURJ

Before leaving the river side, one other building claims notice: this is the Sati Burj. It is a slender quadrangular tower of red sandstone commemorating the self-sacrifice of some faithful wife. According to the best authenticated tradition, she was the queen of Raja Bihar Mal of Jaipur and the mother of Raja Bhagwan Pas, by whom the monument was erected in the year 1570 A.D. It has, as it now stands, a total height of 55 feet and is in four storeys; the exterior is ornamented with rude bas-reliefs of elephants and other devices, but it is in a ruinous condition. The tower was originally of much greater height; but all the upper part was destroyed, it is said, by Aurangzeb. The ugly plaster dome which now surmounts the building was apparently added about the beginning of the present century.

THE JAMA MASJID

On rising ground in the very heart of the city stands the Jama Masjid, erected in the year 1661 A.D. by Abd-un-Nabi Khan, the local governor. An inscription in it seems very clearly to indicate that it was erected on the ruins of a Hindu temple. The founder fought on the side of Dara Shikoh at the battle of Samogarh in 1658. About a week after the defeat he joined Aurangzeb and was immediately appointed Faujdar of Etawah. In the following year he was transferred to Sir-hind and a few months later to Muttra. Here he remained until May 1668, when he met his death at Sahora, a village in Mahaban, while engaged in quelling a popular disturbance. The mosque has four lofty minarets, and both these and other parts of the building were originally veneered with bright coloured plaster mosaics, of which a few panels still remain. It was greatly injured by an earthquake which took place in 1803;*(Asiatic Annual Register,1804, p.57) the gateway was cracked from top to bottom, the upper part of one of the minarets was thrown down, and one of the corner kiosks was destroyed, but the dome was uninjured. It was re-paired in 1875 by means of contributions collected by the Sadabad family of Musalmans.

THE CITY

The mosque is the largest and most conspicuous edifice in what is otherwise a purely Hindu city. But all the buildings by which it is now surrounded are of more modern date than itself. It was not planted in the midst of a Hindu population, but the city, as we now see it, has grown up under its shadow. Old Muttra had been so often looted and harried by the Mu­hammadans that it had practically ceased to exist as a city at all. It was a place of pilgrimage, as it had always been; there were sarais for the accommodation of travellers, the ruins of old temples, and a few resident families of Brahmans to act as guides; but otherwise it was a scene of desolation, and on the spot where Muttra now stands there was no town until Abd-un-Nabi founded it. From the mosque as a central point diverge the main thoroughfares, leading respectively towards Brindaban, Dig, Bharatpur and the civil station. They are fine broad streets and have throughout, been; paved with substantial stone flags brought from the, Bharatpur quarries. Many mean tumbledown hovels are allowed to obtrude themselves on the view; but the majority of the buildings that face the thoroughfares are of handsome and imposing character. Nearly all of them have been erected during the period of British rule, and in all of them the design is of similar character. The front is of carved stone with a central archway and arcades on both sides let out as shops on the ground floor. Above are projecting balconies in several storeys, supported on corbels, the arches being filled in with the minute reticulated tracery of an infinite variety of pattern. One of the most noticeable buildings in point of size is the temple of Dwarka Dhis, founded by the Gwalior treasurer, Parikh Ji, in 1815. On the opposite side of the street is the palace of the Rajas of Bharatpur, the lofty and enriched entrance gateway of which was added by Raja Balwant Singh and the magnificent brass doors by his successor, Raja Jaswant Singh. Close by is the mansion of Seth Lakhmi Chand, built at a cost of Rs. 1,00,000. One of the latest architectural works with which the city has been adorned is the temple near the Chhata Bazar built by Deva Chand Bohra and completed in 1871. There are many other temples in the city erected at great cost during the nineteenth century, which it is unnecessary here to specify in detail;*(A list is given in Growse’s Mathura, pp.165 foll.) but some of the most recent buildings deserve notice. These are the temple of Madan Mohan, built in 1896 by the Rana of Udaipur at the cost of Rs. 1,00,000; the Flora Hall built in 1893 at a cost of Rs. 40,000, by Mr. W. E. Blackstone of Chicago in memory of his daughter; the dharmsala of Seths Duli Chand and Harmukh Rai of Hathras constructed in 1901 at a cost of Rs. 60,000; and the dharmsala of Seths Har Dial and Bishan Dial of Muttra completed in 1904 at a cost of some Rs. 70,000. If the new city was ever surrounded by walls, not a vestige of them now remains, though the four principal entrances are still called the Brindaban, Dig, Bharatpur and Holi darwazas. The last named is the approach from the civil station, and here a lofty and elaborately sculptured stone arch has been erected over the roadway in accordance with the local design. As the work was commenced at the instance of the late Mr. Bradford Hardinge, for several years collector of the district, it is named in his honour the Hardinge gate. After his death it was surmounted by a cupola, intended at some future time to receive a clock: the whole work cost nearly Rs. 14,000.

MODERN INSTITUTIONS

In the outskirts of the city, near the Kans-ka Tila and adjoining the old munsif's court, are the dispensaries for males and females. The high school, which lies near the river on the road leading from the city to the Sadr Bazar, is a large building, and was opened by Sir William Muir on January 21st, 1870: it was erected at a cost of Its. 13,000, out of which the Government granted Rs. 8,000; the remainder was contributed by private subscriptions or the municipality. There are numerous other educational institutions in the city. The middle vernacular school is accommodated in the building on the old fort already mentioned; there is also an Angle-vernacular school belonging to the American Mission at the Flora Hall in the heart of the city; a municipal primary school for boys in the Sadr Bazar, and Government primary schools for girls at Samighat and Mata­gali. There are 13 other schools aided by the municipality and some twenty private schools or pathshalas; among the latter the best known are Salig Ram's pathshala, Kali Charan's pathshala, Bhajan Lal's pathshala, and the St. John's Mission school the police-station is a large building outside the city on the Bharat­pur road.

SADR BAZAR

The Sadr Bazar forms a small town by itself, entirely dis­tinct from the city. There is a fair proportion of brick houses in it, but a great many are built of mud; and the only place of note within or near it is the Jumna Bagh. This is a large walled garden, the property of the Seths, and contains two very hand-some chhatris or cenotaphs, in memory of Parikh Ji, the founder of the family, and Mani Ram, his successor. The latter, which was built in 1837 A.D., is of exceedingly beautiful and elaborate design; perhaps the most perfect specimen ever executed of the reticulated stone tracery for which Muttra is famous. The adjoin­ing garden has a small house and enclosed courtyard on the bank of the river, and, in the centre, an obelisk of white stone raised on a very high and substantial plinth of the same material with the following inscription:"Erected to the memory of Robert Sutherland, Colonel in Maharaj Daulat Rao Scindia's service, who departed this life on the 28th July 1804, aged 36 years. Also in remembrance of his son, C. P. Sutherland (a very promising youth), who died at Hndia on the 14th October 1801, aged three years." Colonel Sutherland was the officer whom DuBoigne, on his retirement in 1795, left in command of the brigade stationed at Muttra. In 1798 after Perron had become Daulat Rao's commander-in-chief, Sutherland was discharged for intrigu­ing with the other Maratha chiefs; but not long after he recovered his post through the interest of his father-in-law, Colonel John Hessing. In 1803 Sutherland, like the other British officers in Sindhia's service, received a pension from the Government, but he lived only one year to enjoy it.

THE CIVIL STATION AND CANTONMENTSS

The cantonments immediately adjoin the Sadr Bazar on the south, the residential bungalows stretching right up to it, and the Roman Catholic and Anglican churches, which have already been described, being situated close by. The cavalry barracks lie further to the west on either side of the main road to Agra and are spread out over an extensive tract of ground, stretching from the Cawnpore-Achnera railway as far as the Damdama. Immediately beyond the latter lies the collector's court-house, built in 1861, the new tahsili, the new munsif's court, the jail, and the Muttra museum with the large open space that forms the cavalry parade ground, in the rear. On the opposite side of the road lie the public gardens, the inspection bungalow belonging to the Public Works department, and the sessions judge's new court-house; while between these and the cantonments lies the civil station. South of the civil station, on both sides of the road to Agra and to Mahaban, are the long stretches of open ground that form the military grass farm, what is now the Muttra museum is a handsome building with a carved front in the Muttra style, close to the Agra road. It was commenced by Mr. Thornhill, magistrate of the district before and at the time of the Mutiny, who raised the money for the purpose by public subscription, intending to make it a rest-house for native gentlemen of rank, whenever they had occasion to visit headquarters. After an expenditure of Rs.30,000 the work was interrupted by the Mutiny. His successor Mr. Best added to the building in various ways, which did not improve it, and after him it was abandoned to utter neglect, having obtained the nick-name of "Thornhill's folly." In 1874 the idea of converting it into a museum received the support of Sir John Strachey, and the build­ing was subsequently completed by various additions at a cost of nearly Rs. 14,000. In it are now accommodated a large number of sculptures and fragments of antiquarian interest which have been dug up at Muttra.

POPULATION

Muttra is seventeenth on the list of the cities of the province, and in 1901 had a total population, including that of the canton­ments, of 60,042 persons, 27,924 of whom were females. Popula­tion has fluctuated to some extent, there having been 59,281 inhabitants in 1872, 57,724 in 1881, and 61,195 in 1891. Classi­fied according to religion there were in the municipality alone 44,374 Hindus, 12,034 Musalmans, 394 Christians, 196 Jains, 60 Sikhs, 50 Aryas and six Parsis. Among the Hindus, Brah­mans were numerically the strongest caste, numbering 8,253 persons; and after them came Chamars, 6,054; Banias, 5,947; Koris, 3,559; Rajputs, 1,975; Malis, 1,415; Kayasths, 1,356; Ahirs, 1,283; Kumhars, 1,117; and Sonars, 1,060. Among Musalmans Sheikhs predominate, numbering 5,412 persons; and are followed by Pathans, 2,098; and Bhangis, 1,251. The occu­pations of the people are diverse. At the last census in 1901, 31.4 per cent. were found to be engaged in industrial pursuits. This comprises a very large class and includes all those employed in the preparation and supply of material substances, 37 per cent.; workers in textile fabrics and dress, 22 per cent.; and workers in metals and precious stones, 10 per cent. Next come those who follow a professional career and make up 13.5 per cent. of the whole population; and they are followed by general labourers, 12.5 per cent.; those engaged in personal services, 12.4 per cent.; and agriculturists, 12.2 per cent. The commer­cial population accounted for 7.7 per cent. of the whole; 6.9 per cent. Had means of subsistence independent of occupation and 3.4 per cent. were in Government service. The chief industry of Muttra is stone-carving some account of which, as also of the manufacture of paper and brass idols, has already been given in Chapter II. The chief imports into the city according to the octroi returns are food, grains, sugar, ghe, and animals for slaughter, oil-seeds, cloth, chemicals, drugs, spices and metals. Of these are probably locally consumed, but a considerable quantity of cotton and grain comes into the city only to be exported, usually without breaking bulk. The business done in country produce is increasing, but it cannot as yet be considered great for a city of the size of Muttra. The opening of the Nagda railway will probably exercise some effect on the trade of the city.

MUNICIPALITY

Muttra was first constituted a municipality; in 1866. The municipal board,as now established under Act I of 1900, consist of 17 members, 13 of whom, including the chairman, are elected while four are appointed. The income of the board is raised chiefly by an octroi-tax on imports and is expended on conser­vancy, lighting, education and public works. Details have already been given in Chapter IV, and the income and expendi­ture year by year from 1891 onwards will be found in the appen­dix*(Appendix,tableXVI). The octroi limits include the cantonments and a share in the proceeds of the tax is paid to the cantonment committee. The work of secretary is performed by a paid servant of the board. The health of the city is generally good and the sanitary condition of the town is favourable. Drinking water is obtained from the Jumna as well as from wells, both inside and outside the city; the well water, however, is often brackish. The sewage of the city is at present collected in cess-tanks built in several quarters for the purpose and then carried by carts to the outskirts of the city where it is trenched.

MUTTRA Tahsil.

This, the headquarters tahsil, forms the south-western subdivision of the district and lies between the parallels of 27°14' and 27°39'N. And 77°20' and 77°51'E. The Chhata tahsil lies on the north; tahsils Mat and Mahaban on the east, being separated from Muttra by the river Jumna; on the south is the Kiraoli tahsil of the Agra district; and on the west the boundary marches with the independent state of Bharatpur. The tahsil is symmetrical in shape, but is broader in the northern part than in the southern; its total length is 29 miles and its average breadth is about 12 miles. Muttra possesses one completely isolated village—Phulwara—surrounded by Bharatpur territory; and there are six villages belonging to that state surrounded by land of the Muttra tahsil; these are Bariya, Umri, Bad, Bhainsa, Shamspur and Dharampur.

The tahsil is a gently sloping plain. The only elevation worthy of notice in it is the Giriraj or Annakut hill at Gobardhan, a rocky eminence running north-east and south-west, parallel to the Bharatpur ranges and celebrated in the mythological legends of the Hindus. The hill is about five miles long and stands about a hundred feet above the plain at its southern end, while at the northern end it is little more than a heap of stones. It is covered with very scanty vegetation, rises abruptly out of the plain, and exercises but little influence on the character of the soil within a few hundred yards even of its base. Khadar or low alluvial soil, ravines, and sandy downs are found along the Jumna, as in Mahaban, and the effects of the river on the soil are manifest for a distance of about three miles inland. At Koila, near Bad, is a horse-shoe depression surrounded by low raviny ground on a level with the general surface of the country; but from the line where the Jumna ceases to exert its influence up to a line where the soil visibly changes for the worse as the Bharatpur ranges of hills are approached, the whole of the tahsil is one flat, uniform plain without a single river or stream to diversify its surface. The soil is for the most part a firm piliya or light loam, with here and there veins of bhur and an odd hillock of puth. Except in the ill-defined line of drainage known as the western depression, the tarai or low-lying inundated area is insignificant. The Agra canal runs down the whole length of the tahsil from north to south and in connection with it several drainage cuts have been made, which have already been described in Chapter I. These have relieved the tracts watered by the canal of waterlogging and have to a certain extent diversified the face of the country. The area of the tahsil varies to some extent from year to year owing to changes in the course of the Jumna; but for the five years ending in 1907 the total area was returned on an average at 253,072 acres. Of this 18,255 acres or 7.21 per cent. were recorded barren; but only 2,196 acres or less than one per cent. were barren waste unfit for cultivation, the remainder being occupied by sites, roads, build­ings and the like. The culturable land out of cultivation amounted to 52,705 acres or 20.82 per cent. of the total area of the tahsil, old fallow accounting for 28,653 and new fallow for 16,584 acres. The cultivated area for the same period averaged 182,112 acres or 71.96 per cent. of the whole, a lower proportion than that of any other tahsil in the district. On the other hand. 70,487 acres or 38.71 per cent. of this were on an average irrigated—the proportion being the highest in the district. There are no marshes or tanks in the tahsil and the area watered from "other sources" is necessarily very restricted; and 73.62 per cent. of the irrigation is now carried on from the canal. Muttra tahsil has benefited more than any other from the con­struction of the canal. Before this was built the average depth of water from the surface was some 50 feet, and it was a matter of considerable expense to sink a well, more especially as the sandiness of the sub-soil generally necessitated the construction of a masonry cylinder. At the present time however the water level varies from 30 to 40 feet in the tracts which are unaffected by the canal and is lowest in the centre of the tahsil where it reaches 60 feet. The average area watered from wells is 18,515 acres or 26.26 per cent. of the irrigated area. The kharif is the principal harvest and averages 116,861 acres as against 83,787 acres sown in the rabi, while the area twice cropped within the year amounts to 19,243 acres or 10.56 per cent. of the net cul­tivation. The principal crops grown in the autumn are juar and cotton, alone or in combination with arhar; after this comes bajra, alone or similarly combined, and guar, while small areas are under maize and moth. In the spring 36.57 per cent. of the harvest is occupied by barley or barley intermixed with gram, 27.36 per cent. by gram alone, and 25.24 per cent. by wheat; while the last named crop, in combination either with barley or with gram, covers an additional 4.81 per cent.

Cultivation is up to the general standard of the district, and the weed baisuri is almost unknown. The chief cultivating castes are Jats, Rajputs, Brahmans, Chamars and Muham­madans. The Jats are just as skilful and industrious as their brethren in the Doab parganas; but the others are far inferior to them. In 1907-08 proprietors as such held 16.69 per cent. of the cultivated area, occupancy and exproprietary tenants 25.11 per cent. And tenants-at-will 56.69 per cent.; the small remainder being rent-free. Muttra contains 227 villages, at present divided into 781 mahals. Of the latter, 250, representing 36.36 per cent. of the area, are in the hands of single zamindars, and 197 or 17.02 per cent. are held in joint zamindari. Of the remainder 96 or 6.32 per cent. are held in perfect and 137 or 22.77 per cent. in imperfect pattidari tenure; while 23 or 4.51 per cent. are bhaiyachara. The number of pattidari estates is the smallest of any tahsil in the district; on the other hand no less than 77 mahals or 12.99 per cent. are held revenue-free, while one belongs to the Government. Jats, here as elsewhere, own the largest area, their proprietary possessions extending over 41,358 acres. Next come Brahmans, 37,366; Rajputs, 32,607; and Banias, 17,692 acres. Smaller areas are held by Gosains, Musalmans, Kayasths, Khattris, Gujars, Ahirs and Lodhas. The largest landholder is the temple of Rangji at Brindaban, whose endowment includes seven whole villages and portions of six others assessed to a revenue demand of Rs. 31,319. The Lala Babu estate comprises two whole villages and parts of two others with a demand of Rs. 10,250; Seth Bhikh Chand of Muttra owns two whole villages and parts of nine others with a revenue of Its. 10,143; and Babu Kalyan Singh of Muttra pays Rs. 8,548 on one whole village and parts of eleven others. Two villages belong to the purohit of the Chattarbhuj temple at Muttra, paying a revenue of Rs. 6,931; the Raja of Awa holds five more with a demand of Rs. 12,704; and Muhammad Mohsin Khan of Karahri possesses portions of seven villages assessed to Rs. 4,220.

In 1881 the tahsil had a population of 220,307 persons, and since that time the total has steadily increased. At the follow­ing enumeration of 1891 the number had risen to 234,914, while at the last census in 1901, there were 246,521 inhabitants, of whom 113,997 were females. The average density is 623 persons to the square mile—the highest in the district; but the rate is swollen by the inclusion of a large city population. Classified according to religions, there were 214,349 Hindus, 30,556 Musalmans, 848 Christians, 504 Jains, 183 Aryas, 74 Sikhs, four Parsis and three Brahmo Samajists. Brahmans are the numerically strongest Hindu caste, numbering 43,426 persons, while after them come Chamars, 36,142; Rajputs, 22,457; Banias, 18,000; and Jats, 13,784. Other castes with over 2,000 members apiece are Koil, Bairagis, Jogis, Gadariyas, Gujars, Barhais, Nais, Kumkars, Kahars, Ahirs, Kayasths, Kachhis, Bhaugis, Malis, Dhobis, Sonars and Darzis. The chief Muhammadan subdivisions arc Sheikhs, Bhangis, Pathans, and converted Rajputs, Saiyids and Faqirs. The tahsil is mainly agricultural in charac­ter, though Muttra is a commercial and industrial centre of growing importance, especially in regard to the cotton trade. The number of those engaged in personal services is also large owing to the presence of a large city population; and there are also a large number of graziers.

There are six towns in the tahsil. These comprise the two municipalities of Muttra and Brindaban, the cantonment of Muttra, and the Act XX towns of Gobardhan, Sonkh and Farah. Besides these there are several places of some size and importance. O1, Aring, and Jait possess police stations; Radhakund is a famous place of pilgrimage; and Magorra, Nainupatti, Bachhgaon, Jhundawai, Parson, Phondar and Beri possess over two thousand inhabitants each. Lists of the markets, fairs, schools and post-offices will be found in the appendix.

Muttra tahsil is admirably supplied with means of commu­nication. The Agra-Dehli Chord railway traverses the whole tahsil from south to north; and the Nagda-Muttra railway from west to east; and closely parallel to the former runs the Cawnpore-Achnera railway on the metre-gauge system as far as Muttra city. There is also a branch of the latter which connects Muttra and Brindaban. Following the alignment of the Agra-Dehli Chord railway runs the metalled provincial road from Agra to Dehli, while other metalled roads run to Bharatpur, Dig and Hathras. A small metalled approach road connects the town of Farah with the Parkham station on the Cawnpore-Achnera railway; and the stations of Bad and Farah in the Agra-Dehli Chord railway with the metalled road from Agra to Muttra. Unmetalled roads connect Muttra with Sonkh, and Sonkh with Gobardhan and Sahar. The Jumna river is bridged for the Cawnpore-Achnera railway at Muttra city, and the bridge is also used for cart and passenger traffic; while elsewhere the passage of the river is effected by means of ferries. A list of these is given in the appendix; the most important are those at Brindaban on the road to Mat and at Gokulghat on the road to Mahaban.

In the days of Akbar the present tahsil of Muttra was divided among the mahals of Mangotla, O1, Mathura, Maholi and Sahar. To the Jats is attributed the destruction of O1 and the creation of the pargana of Farah, and the division of Mangotla into the two parganas of Sonkh and Sousa. From Sahar and a few villages of Sonkh was formed late in the 18th century the pargana of Gobardhan, which was created as a waqf for Raza Quli Beg by Najaf Khan. The whole tract formed part of the territories ceded to the East India Company by Daulat Rao Sindhia in 1803. Sonkh and Sousa were at first made over to the Raja of Bharatpur, and Gobardhan was granted free of assessment to Kunwar Lachhman Singh, a younger son of Raja Ranjit Singh of Bharatpur, the rest of the pargana, lying outside pargana Farah, being formed into a distinct pargana called Aring. Next Sonkh and Sousa were resumed in 1805 and made over to Sindhia as a jagir for his wife and daughter, only to be finally resumed three years later and annexed, like Farah, to the district of Agra. Gobardhan was annexed to Agra in 1826. On the formation of the new district of Muttra in 1832, all these parganas, except Farah, together with Sahar, Shergarh and Kosi were transferred to it. The whole at first constituted one tahsil with the headquarters at Sahar, where the tahsildar resided. The home pargana, however, was administered by a peshkar in independent charge, who held his office in the civil station. In 1838 Sahar was detached and, along with Shergarh, made into a separate tahsil, while the rest of the tract was formed into a second tahsil with the headquarters at Aring. Thirty years later, or in 1867, the head-quarters were removed from Aring to Muttra and the peshkar's establishment at the latter place was broken up. The last change was made in October 1st, 1878 when 84 villages from the Farah tahsil of the Agra district were incorporated in the Muttra tahsil.

At the present day the tahsil constitutes a revenue and criminal subdivision, the charge of which is usually entrusted to the senior joint or assistant magistrate on the district staff. In police matters the jurisdiction is divided between the police stations of Muttra, Sadr Bazar, Brindaban, Jait, Aring, Gobar­dhan, Sonkh, Farah and O1.

NAINU PATTI, Tahsil MUTTRA.

A large mauza lying in 27°25'N. and 77°30'E., close to the unmetalled road from Muttra to Sonkh, at a distance of 14 miles from the former and two miles north from the latter place. The village consists of eleven distinct mahals, Arazi Shamilat, Daupura, Jangali Bari, Khilu, Saida and nagaras Bhau, Bhunchha, Chauthaiya, Ghaniya, Kalan and Kanku. Ten of these were formed by the sons and relations of the original Jat pro­prietor Nainu, while Arazi Shamilat has been formed out of some land which was held muafi by a Bairagi and was subsequently resumed. The Jats were preceded by Kirars. The area of the united township is 3,238 acres and it is assessed to a revenue demand of Rs. 4,470. The zamindars are for the most part Jats, but a considerable area has passed to Pandit Shimbhu Nath, a Kashmiri Brahman. The population in 1901 amounted to 2,798 persons, of whom 2,753 were Hindus and 45 Muhammadans, Jats being the predominant Hindu caste.

NANDGAON, Tahsil CHHATA.

The village of Nandgaon lies at the foot of the same hill on which Barsana is situated, in 27°43'N. and 77°23'E. The dis­tance between the two places is only five miles; but Nandgaon is 29 miles north-west of Muttra and eight miles west from Chhata. It is the reputed home of Krishna's foster-father, Nanda, and on the brow of the hill which overlooks the village is the spacious temple of Nand Rae Ji. The temple, though large, has no architectural merit and apparently only dates from the middle of last century. Its reputed founder is one Rup Singh, a Sinsinwar Jat. It consists of an open nave, with choir and sacrarium beyond, the latter being flanked on either side by a rasoi and a sej-mahal, that is a cooking and sleeping apartment, and has two towers or sikharas. It stands in the centre of a paved courtyard, surrounded by a lofty wall with corner kiosks, which command an extensive view. The village, which clusters at the foot and on the slope of the rock, contains a few hand-some houses, the most noticeable being one erected by Rup Ram of Barsana. There are small temples dedicated to Narsinha, Gopinath, Nritya Gopal, Girdhari, Nanda Nandan, Radha Mohan and Manasa Devi; and one on a larger scale, standing in a courtyard of its own, half-way up the hill, which bears the title of Jasoda Nandan, and is much in the same style and ap­parently of the same: date as the temple of Nand Rae, or perhaps a little older. A flight of 114 broad steps, constructed of well-wrought stone from the Bharatpur quarries, leads from the level of the plain up to the steep and narrow street which terminates at the main entrance of the great temple. This staircase was made at the cost of Babu Gaur Prasad of Calcutta in the year 1818 A.D. At the foot of the hill is a large unfinished square with a range of stone buildings on one side for the reception of pilgrims and dealers, and at the back an extensive garden, the property of the Raja of Bharatpur. A little beyond this is the sacred lake called Pan Sarovar, a fine large street of water with masonry ghats on all its sides, the work of one of the Rajas of Burdwan. This is one of the four lakes of highest repute in Braj; the others being the Chandra Sarovar at Parsoli, near Gobardhan; the Pram Sarovar at Ghazipur, near Barsana; and the Man Sarovar at Arua, in Mat tahsil. The Pan Sarovar is supposed to be the pool where Krishna used to drive the cows to water (pani). Near the village is a kadamb grove, called Udho-ji-ka kyar, and, according to popular belief, there are within the limits of Nandgaon no less than 56 sacred lakes or kunds, though it is admitted that all of them are not readily visible.

The total area of the village of Nandgaon is 5,243 acres, and the proprietary right was transferred in 1811 A.D. to the Lala Babe by the then zamindars. The population, which in 1881 numbered 3,253 persons, rose to 4,368 in 1901; of this total 4,212 were Hindus and 156 were Musalmans. Jats are the predominant Hindu caste. Nandgaon contains an upper primary school, attended by some 25 boys. The Village Sanitation Act (U. P. Act II of 1892) is in force in the village.

NAUGAWAN, Tahsil SADABAD.

This village which is also called Naugama lies in 27°26'N. and 78°0'E. close to the metalled road from Muttra to Sadabad: it is 21 miles distant from the former and three miles distant from the latter place. Naugawan is a large village and has an area of 3,480 acres, assessed to a revenue of Rs. 8,545. The population in 1901 numbered 3,927 souls, of whom 3,652 were Hindus, 250 Muhammadans and 25 of other religions. The village was founded by three Jats named Dhani, Pachauri and Adu; and is still owned for the most part by their descendants. There is a primary school in the village, and market is held every Monday and Thursday.

NAUGAWAN, Tahsil CHHATA.

This village is situated nearly midway between Jait and Shergarh, on the unmetalled road which connects those places. It lies in 27°42'N. and 77°38'E., at a distance of 17 miles from Muttra. The village has now an area of 3,515 acres and is assessed to a revenue of Rs. 5,467; but in former days it was considered a part of Taroli, until it was separated by those of the zamindars who adopted the faith of Islam. The present proprietor is Baba Kalyan Singh Bhargava, but the predominant caste in the village is that of Malkhanas. In 1901 the popula­tion of the place numbered 2,690 persons, 1,900 being Musalmans.

NIMGAON, Tahsil MAHABAN.

This village lies in 27°39'N. and 77°50'E., in the extreme north of Mahaban tahsil. It is 15 miles distant from both Muttra and Mahaban. Nimgaon has an area of 6,100 acres and is assessed to a demand of Rs. 5,622. It was founded by Jats from Aira Khera, and Jats are still the principal caste both inhabiting and owning the village. The population increased from 2,449 persons in 1881 to 2,644 in 1901; of the latter num­ber 2,446 were Hindus and 198 were Muhammadan. The place contains a primary school.

NOHJHIL, Tahsil MAT.

The village of Nohjhil lies in 27°51'N. and 77°40'E., at a distance of 30 miles from Muttra and 18 miles from Mat; with the latter it is connected by an unmetalled road. The vil­lage derives the latter part of its name from the large lake, supposed to have been an old bed of the Jumna, of which a description has been given in Chapter I; while the first portion is the Arabic form of the name of the patriarch which in Eng­lish is ordinarily written Noah. The centre of the site is occu­pied by an extensive mud fort, built about the year 1740 by Thakur Devi Singh, an officer of the Bharatpur Rajas. It is now in ruins, but its crumbling bastions command a fine view of the jhil that spreads beneath it. Until the year 1860, Noh­jhil was the headquarters of a separate tahsil now incorporated in Mat; and in 1826 the tahsili was built within the enclosure of this fort. The buildings were subsequently, at the abolition of the tahsil, converted into a police station. In the same loca­lity is a lofty tower built in 1836 for the purposes of the trigo­nometrical survey. Outside the village is a Muhammadan makbara or tomb, called the dargah of Makhdum Sheikh Sahib Shah Hasan Ghori, traditionally ascribed to a Dor Raja of Kol who flourished in the sixteenth century. The buildings are now in a dilapidated condition, but include a covered colonnade of twenty pillars which has been constructed out of the wreck of a Hindu or Buddhist temple. The pillars are exceptional in two respects; first, as being all of uniform design, an anomaly in Hindu architecture; secondly, as being, though of fair height, each cut out of a single block of stone. The saint's urs or fair is held on the fourteenth day of the month Ramazan, and his tomb is visited by some of the people in the neighbourhood every Thursday evening.

The original proprietors of Nohjhil were Chauhan Rajputs who were expelled in the thirteenth century by some data from Narwari near Tappal, and others from Jartauli near Khair, in the Aligarh district; these data afterwards acquired the name of Nohwar. In the seventeenth century some Biluchis were stationed here by the emperor of Dehli, for the express purpose of overawing the Jats; but their occupation did not last above 80 years. On June 4th, 1857, the Nohwar Jats of Nohjhil with their kinsmen from Musmina and Parsoli attacked the fort and plundered all the inhabitants, except the Brahmans. The lumbardar, Ghaus Muhammad, was killed, and all the Government officials fled to the village of Thera, where the Malkhana zamindars gave them shelter. At the time of the Mutiny four and a quarter biswas of alluvial land, called the lana, were in the possession of the rebel Umrao Bahadur; these were confiscated and given to Seth Lakhmi Chand.

The population of Nohjhil has increased of late years; in 1881 it numbered 2,675 persons, and in 1901 had risen to 2,827. Of this number 1,946 were Hindus, 875 Musalmans and six of other religions. The village contains a police station, pound, a post-office and primary school. A weekly market is held on Fridays. The total area is 3,163 acres and the revenue demand Rs.5,481. The zamindars are a mixed community of Brahmans, Musalmans and Banias, and part of the estate forms a portion of the endowment of the Dwarka Dhis temple at Muttra.

OL, Tahsil MUTTRA.

O1 is situated in 27°18N. and 77°38'E., and is distant 16 miles in a direct line south from Muttra. It is connected with Farah, eight miles to the east, by an unmetalled road. The place is an old one, by tradition as old as Krishna, and, from the days of Akbar till the time of the Jat supremacy under Suraj Mal, it gave its name to a mahal or pargana. The population increased from 3,123 persons in 1881 to 4,253 persons in 1901. Of the latter number 2,385 were Hindus and 1,868 were Muham­madan, Sheikhs being the predominant caste or subdivision. O1 contains a police station, pound, primary school and post-office. The village has a total area of 3,312 acres and is assessed to a demand of Rs.4,516, the zamindars being Sheikhs, Saiyids and Brahmans.

PACHAWAR, Tahsil MAHABAN.

This is a large agricultural village in the centre of the tahsil about four miles east of the metalled road from Raya to Baldeo. It lies in 27°28'N. and 77°51'E., at a distance of 12 miles from Muttra and seven miles from Mahaban. The village has an area of 3,347 acres, and was founded by one Bijai Singh, a Bharangar Jat from Anaundha, after whose two sons, Bali and Dhian, the two thoks, into which the village is divided, are named. Juts are the chief inhabitants of the village but the proprietary rights have passed for the most part to Brahmans and Banias, the revenue payable being Rs. 8,347. In 1901 the population numbered 4,242 souls, 3,986 being Hindus, 191 Musalmans and 65 persons of other religions. Pachawar has a primary school and market is held every Sunday, when traffic is carried on in cattle and agricultural produce.

PAIGAON, Tahsil CHHATA.

Paigaon lies exactly half-way between Shergarh and Kosi on the unmetalled road which connects these two places. It is situated in 27°47'N. and 77°33'E., and is distant 24 miles from Muttra and four miles north-north-east from Chhata. The village has an area of 3,578 acres and is held in bhaiyachara tenure by a large community of Jats, the revenue demand being Rs. 5,845. The population in 1881 numbered 2,010 souls, but in 1901 the number of inhabitants had increased to 2,952, of whom 2,857 were Hindus, 91 Muhammadans and four of other religions. The village contains a small aided school and the principal Hindu caste is that of Jats. Here too is a large tract of wood-land known as Paiban, with a pond called Paibankund, where a small fair called the Barasi Naga Ji is held on the seventh day of the dark half of Kuar. The pilgrims, about 1,000 in number, are fed by the mahant of the temple of Chattarbhuj.

PANIGAON, Tahsil MAHABAN.

This village lies six miles north of Muttra in a direct line on the east bank of the Jumna and is distant some eight miles from the district headquarters by road. It lies in 27°34'N. and 77°14'E., in the khadar or alluvial land of the Jumna, which is still flooded in the rains and must have been at no very distant date an old bed of the river. The village occupies an area of 3,892 acres, but the greater part of this is covered by an extensive wood of babul, rionj and chhonkar trees, and the revenue demand is only Rs. 1,120. The village is the property of the Raja of Bharatpur and contains a small temple built by Mohani, the Rani of Suraj Mal, and a large but shallow lake, which dries up in the hot weather, known as the Man Sarovar. On the banks of this lake is a small hermitage, prettily situated in the remains of an old bagh said to have been planted by a Raja of Ballabhgarh, to whom is also ascribed a chhatri with a ribbed stone roof. The population of the village has fallen from 2,074 persons in 1881 to 1,813 in 1901. Hindus number 1,506 and Muhammadans 307, Brahmans being the predominant Hindu caste. There is a school in the place.

PARKHAM, Tahsil MUTTRA.

This small village lies in 27°17'N. and 77°43'E., 17 miles south of Muttra. It is only noticeable as the site of a railway station on the Cawnpore-Achnera railway which is connected by a road with the Agra-Muttra road. The popula­tion, including that of the railway station, in 1901 numbered 806 persons, of whom 687 were Hindus, 110 Musalmans and nine of other religions. The prevailing Hindu caste is that of Chamars. The area of the village is 840 acres and the revenue demand Rs. 796, the zamindars being Kashmiri Brahmans and Musalmans. Parkham contains a small aided school and a small fair is held in honour of Jakhaiya every Sunday in the month of Magh. Here was discovered in 1882 a colossal statue of a man, seven feet in height and two feet broad across the shoulders, made of grey sandstone and bearing an inscription of the Asoka period.*( Cunningham,Arch.Rep.,vol.XX,pp.39-41) It is the oldest of all the remains discovered in the Muttra district and is now in the Muttra museum.

PARSON, Tahsil MUTTRA.

Parson lies in 27°34'N. and 77°25'E., at a distance of 18 miles east-north-east from Muttra and seven miles north-east from Gobardhan. The name of the village seems to be derived from a large tank inside the remains of a kadamb grove which is still called Parasuram kund. In the village is an old shrine with the title of Radha Rawan, and on a small khera or mound towards Mahroli are some massive slabs of stone and sculptured fragments called Balbhadr. The village has an area of 3,964 acres and is held revenue free by Raja Madan Singh of Kishangarh. It was granted to his ancestor, Raja Baradh Singh, in 1788 A.D. by Madho Rao Sindhia for the maintenance of a pilgrim house at Brindaban. The Raja also holds nearly all the zamindari which he purchased at auction in 1844. The population of the place in 1901 numbered 2,540 persons, of whom all but 90 were Hindus. The predominant Hindu caste is that of Ahivasis, who formerly owned the village. These people were in days gone-by engaged in the salt trade, and Parson like other Ahivasi villages is characterised by a large number of masonry houses. There is an aided school in the village, the name of which is sometimes written Palson.

PHALEN, Tahsil CHHATA.

This village is situated in 27°48'N. and 77°30'E., at a distance of only four miles from Kosi and 28 miles from Muttra. It has a total area of 5,293 acres and is owned by a large community of Jats, who pay a revenue demand of Rs. 8,500. In 1901 there were 3,711 inhabitants in the place, compared with 3,420 in 1881. Of the whole number 3,438 were Hindus, 215 were Musalmans and 58 were of other religions, mainly Jains. The village contains an aided school and has a weekly market on Mondays; while every year at the time of the Holi, on the full moon of Phalgun, a special fair called the Mela Prahlad Ji is held, of which a description has been given in Chapter III.

PHONDAR, Tahsil MUTTRA.

Phondar is a large agricultural village in 27°22'N. and 77°34'E., distant 17 miles south-west from Muttra, lying close to the Bharatpur border. It has an area of 3,361 acres and is assessed to revenue of Rs. 5,490, the proprietors being Jats, Brahmans and Marwaris. In 1901 the population had increased to 2,333 persons, 2,272 being Hindus and 61 Musal­mans, the prevailing Hindu caste being that of data of the Kuntel got. The village was confiscated from its Jat owners at the Mutiny and conferred on Chaudhri Daulat Singh of Ral, but it was eventually restored to the old proprietors. There are about 20 bighas of woodland, called the kadamb khandi, with a pond, from the flowering lotuses in which the village is supposed to derive its name. Round the old khera which is still inhabited there are a number of wells at work, the water being nearer the surface and mere plentiful than elsewhere in the village owing to a substratum of sand. The village has as many as nineteen hamlets.

RADHAKUND, Tahsil MUTTRA.

Radhakuud is situated 16 miles west of Muttra in 27°32'N. and 77°28'E. It is the next village to Gobardhan, and the Kusum Sarovar Lake and the cenotaph of Suraj Mal, described in connection with Gobardhan, lie on the borders of the village. Radha-kund is occasionally called Sri-kund (i.e., Holy-well) and has grown up on the margin of the sacred pond from which the locality derives its name. It is said when Krishna had slain the demon Arishta, who had ravaged the country in the form of a bull, he felt that some guilt attached to him in consequence of the deed, since everything with the form and figure of a cow should be accounted sacred. So he summoned to the spot all the sacred streams of Braj and bade them pour their holy waters into two deep reservoirs prepared for the occasion. There he bathed and was washed clean of the pollution he had incurred. Every year, it is believed, the holy spirits reassemble at the scene of this mystic baptism on the eighth day of the dark fortnight of Kartik. A large fair is held on the day, and the devout pilgrim who plunges beneath the water of these tanks acquires as much religious merit as if he had made a pilgrimage to each of the sacred places. The two lakes, called respectively Krishan-kund and Radha-kund after Krishna and his favourite mistress, are faced on all sides with stone ghats, and only parted from each other by a broad terrace of the same material. This was the work of Babu Krishan Chandra Sen, better known as the Lala Baba, who completed the work in 1817 A.D., at the cost of a lakh of rupees. The town which has grown up in the vicinity is crowded with temples and rest-houses, but none of them are of any antiquity or special architectural merit. The population of Radha-kund in 1901 numbered 2,776 souls, of whom 2,661 were Hindus and 114 Musalmans. The area of the village is 2,819 acres and the revenue demand is Rs. 3,905, the zamindars being the Seth's temple at Brindaban and the Raja of Awa. There is a small school in the village, and a post-office. _

Kesarjit Singh alias Tambu Singh and Gopal Singh, political detenus of the Manipur State reside here under the surveillance of the police at Gobardhan.

RAL, Tahsil MUTTRA.

The village of Ral is situated nine miles north-west of Muttra on the banks of the Sahar canal distributary, in 27°34'N. and 77°35'E. It is connected by an unmetalled road both with Jait and Aring. Ral is said to derive its name from having been the scene of one of Krishna's many battles (rar), and it has a total area of 5,132 acres. The original proprietors were Rajputs, who sold their rights to Gosain Kesonand, the priest of the Sringarbat temple at Brindaban, from whom the estate was purchased by Raja Prithvi Singh of Awa. It is now owned by Raja Balwant Singh of Awa at a revenue demand of Rs. 5,467. The population of Ral has increased from 2,033, the number in 1881, to 2,489 in 1901, Hindus accounting for 2,434 of the total and the remainder being Musalmans. The numerically strongest Hindu caste is still that of Rajputs, and the principal resident in the place was formerly Chaudhri Daulat Singh, a descendant of the old family who owned the village. Under the Marathas the family is said to have enjoyed the chaudhrayat of 307 villages, and at the time of the Mutiny Daulat Singh was the only honorary magistrate in the district. His good services then were rewarded by a donation of Rs. 7,000 and a grant of 43 villages; but the latter were resumed six months later. In a garden outside the town are three chhatris in honour of his ancestors, one of whom, Debi Singh by name, built the large mud fort which still exists. Ral contains a cattle-pound and a primary school, and market is held every Monday. There are two extensive tracts of woodland in the village covering about 900 bighas; and half-way between Ral and Bathri is a deserted site called Basra Khera, held in much honour by the Ahivasis, who bring their children to it when their hair is to be cut for the first time. There are fragments of a sculptured doorway and a curious group of three seated female figures, each with a child at her feet, in her lap and in her arms.

RASULPUR, Tahsil MUTTRA.

Rasulpur is situated close to the Bharatpur border, on the metalled road from Muttra to Bharatpur, in 27°20'N. and 77°35'E. It is distant 14 miles from the district headquarters. The village is owned by a community of Jats, who are the predominant Hindu caste in it, has a total area of 1,383 acres, and is assessed to a demand of Rs. 1,702. The population, however, only numbers 718 persons, 26 of these being Musal­mans, and the village is only noticeable as being the site of a pound and post-office. The police station was abolished in 1909. There is a masonry tank and a dharmsala in the village and on the village hill there is an idgah, the pillars of which are the spoil of an ancient Hindu temple which is said to have stood a mile away. They resemble the pillars in the Chhatthi Palna at Mahaban and are probably of the same date.

RAYA, Tahsil MAHABAN.

The town of Raya is situated on the metalled road to Hathras, in 27°33'N. and 77°48'E. It is distant eight miles both from Muttra and Mahaban; and has a station on the Cawnpore-Achnera railway. It derives its name from one Rae Sen who is regarded as the ancestor of all the Jats of the Godha pal or clan. There is an old mud fort ascribed originally to one Jamsher Beg, but rebuilt in the time of Thakur Daya Ram of Hathras. The town has no arable land of its own but is merely a township, the most prominent residents of which are a Bania family, whose masonry houses are the most conspicuous buildings in the place. Raya has been administered under Act XX of 1856 since the year 1859. The average income under the chauki­dari assessment is Rs. 765 which is expended in the maintenance of extra police, a small conservancy staff and in works of im­provement in the town. Section 34 of the Police Act (V of 1861) is also in force. Rays is a busy market town, whose trade has been fostered by the railway; and it contains a police station, pound, post-office and a middle vernacular school with a primary branch. Market is held on Mondays and Fridays. The population of the place was 2,752 persons in 1881: this figure rose to 3,179 in 1891, but fell to 2,831 in 1901. Of this number 2,016 were Hindus and 815 were Musalmans.

The Mat branch of the canal passes about a mile to the west of the town, and there is an inspection bungalow situated on it, close to the main road.

The Village Sanitation Act (U. P. Act II of 1892) is in force in the town.

SADABAD, Tahsil, SADABAD.

The chief town of the tahsil lies on the banks of a small stream called the Jhirna or Karwan nadi, in 27°26'N. and 78°3'E. It lies 24 miles east-south-east of Muttra at the junction of four important metalled roads. Of these one runs straight to Muttra, another to the Jalesar road railway station on the East Indian railway, while the remaining two connect the place with the towns of Agra and Aligarh. Sadabad is hardly more than a considerable village. It was founded by the Wazir Sadullah Khan—the minister of the emperor Shahjahan who died in 1655 A.D.; and was the capital of the district between the years 1828 and 1832. The most conspicuous object in the town is the tahsili, a square fort-like structure with battlemented walls which stands on the site of an old fort ascribed to Gosain Himmat Bahadur. There is in the main street a moderate sized temple, but the most noticeable building in the place is the mosque erected by Kunwar Irshad Ali Khan near his private residence. There are two other small mosques, one built by a former tahsildar called Ahmad Ali Khan, and the other ascribed to the Wazir from whom the place takes its name. The oldest temples are two in honour of Mahadeva, one of Hallman, and a fourth founded by Daulat Rao Sindhia. Immediately opposite the road that branches off to Jalesar is an inspection house belonging to the Public Works department; and about half a mile from the town on the Agra side is a large and commodious bungalow belonging to the Musalman family of whom some account has been given in Chapter III. Sadabad contains a police station, pound, middle vernacular school and post-office. Market is held on Tuesdays and Saturdays. The town has been administered under Act XX of 1856 since the year 1859. The chaukidari assessment, which is levied in the usual way, yields an income of some Rs. 960 and is expended on police, conservancy and works of simple improvement. The popula­tion has considerably increased of late years. The inhabitants numbered 3,286 in 1881; and this number rose to 3,546 in 1891. In 1901 the population was returned at 4,091 persons, of whom 1,924 were females. Classified according to Religions there were 2,354 Hindus, 1,594 Musalmans and 143 others.

In the Mutiny Sadabad was attacked by the Jats, and seven, lives were lost before they were repulsed. A Thakur of Hathras, by name Samant Singh, who led the defence, subsequently received the grant of a village in Aligarh, while two of the Jat ringleaders, Zalim and Deo Karan of Kursanda, were hanged..

The Village Sanitation Act (U. P. Act II of 1892) is in force in the town.

SADABAD Tahsil.

Sadabad tahsil is the easternmost tahsil of the district and lies between the parallels of 27°16' and 27°31'N. and 77°53 and 78°l3'E. It is bounded on the north by the district of Aligarh, on the east by that of Etah, on the south by Agra, and on the west by tahsil Mahaban of the Muttra district; and has an average length of 19 miles from east to west and an average breadth of 10 miles from north to south. In shape it is a rough quadrilateral figure of symmetrical shape and outline.

The tahsil is divided into two portions by the Jhirna or Karwan river, the portion lying to the east being known in former days as the pargana of Sahpau, and that to the west of the stream being the pargana of Sadabad proper. The tahsil touches the Jumna river, on the Mahaban boundary, in the extreme south-west, where two villages, Mirhaoli and Mandaur, partake of the raviny character of the country bordering on that river; but apart from this the only physical feature in the tract is the Karwan river. The valley of this stream is of considerable depth and breadth in the rainy season owing to the rapidity of the current and the large volume of water which passes down it; but at other times of the year there is but little flow in it except when it is being used as a canal escape. The centre of the valley of the river is occupied by the deep but narrow bed of the stream, whilst on both sides of the bed alluvial belts of cultivated land generally occur. This alluvial tract is connected with the level uplands above by a sloping down, intersected by a few small ravines. These slopes, on account of the denuded character of the soil, are either used as pasture land or are occasionally sown with inferior autumn crops. But when once this belt is passed the land is exceptionally level and uniform. Jhils and marshes are very rare, and there is very little usar. The pre­vailing soil is the light and easily worked loam known as piliya, interspersed here and there with patches of bhur or sand, which however bear but a small proportion to the whole area. Such usar as there is is found in the east of the tahsil; and in the same direction, in and around depressions, the soil is stiffer and more argillaceous. There are a few patches of waste covered with scrub jungle and occasionally dhak trees; but the weed baisuri is rife and has at times much interfered with cultivation.

As the tahsil is practically untouched by any large river which shifts its bed, its total area hardly changes from year to year, and is returned as 115,209 acres or 180 square miles. Of this only 6,909 acres or 5.99 per cent, are classed as barren, while the culturable land out of cultivation amounts to only 9,821 acres or 8.52 per cent., the latter being the smallest proportion among the tahsils of the district. The area under cultivation reaches a cor­respondingly high figure and for the five years ending in 1907 averaged 97,479 acres or no less than 84.6 per cent, of the whole tahsil. Sadabad is now watered by the tails of three distributaries from the Mat branch extension canal; but even before these we reconstructed irrigation had always been highly developed in it. Nor does canal irrigation so far appear to have had any other effect than that of changing the method of irrigation. In 1903, before the canal was opened, there were 36,128 acres watered and the quinquennial average from 1903 to 1907 is only 36,558 acres or 37.50 per cent. of the cultivation. Canals do not touch the portion of the tahsil lying east of the Karwan river and there the irrigated area is still entirely served by wells, which account for 91.27 per cent. of the total irrigation of the tahsil. At the same time Sadabad has suffered severely during the droughts of the last 13 years; and the water level, which in 1875 was reckoned to be only 30 feet below the surface, has now sunk in places to as much as 60 feet; while the quality of the water has become generally more brackish. The kharif is the principal harvest and averages 62,258 acres as against 42,837 acres sown in the Rabi, the area cropped more than once in the year being 8,389 acres or 8.61 per cent. of the net cultivation. The chief crops grown in the autumn are juar, cotton and bajra, either alone or in combination with arhar, while smaller areas are devoted to guar and maize. Barley, alone or combined with gram, is the principal spring crop, occupying 45.43 per cent. of the total area sown in that harvest; and after it comes wheat, 35.42 per cent., and wheat intermixed with gram or barley, 10.94 per cent.

The distinguishing peculiarity in the character of the cultiva­tion of Sadabad is its all-round excellence. The small pargana of Sahpau is a common ground on which the great agricultural castes of Rajputs, Ahirs and Jats meet in nearly equal numbers; but whereas in Jalesar on the east Jats are almost unrepresented, in pargana Sadabad on the west they occupy the most prominent position of all. To them is due the excellence of the cultivation; and the other chief cultivating castes are Brahmans, Rajputs, Chamars and Musalmans. In 1907-08 proprietors as such held 16.83 per cent., exproprietary and occupancy tenants 27.57 per cent., and tenants-at-will 54.80 per cent., of the total holdings area, the small remainder being rent-free. Sadabad contains 130 villages, at present divided into 367 mahals. Of the latter, 79, representing 16.80 per cent. Of the whole area, are in the hands of single landolders, and 41 or 6.83 per cent. are held in joint zamindari tenure. There are 84 estates or 22.19 per cent, of the tahsil in which the perfect pattidari tenure prevails, 114 or 38.49 per cent. in which the tenure is imperfect pattidari, and 48 or 15.67 per cent. which are bhaiyachara. Only one estate is revenue-free. The proprietors are chiefly Jats, 31,162 acres; Brahmans. 27,152 acres; Banias, 14,097 acres; Musalmans, 14,012 acres; and Rajputs, 10,585 acres. The largest proprietors are Kunwar Latafat Ali Khan and Kunwar Itimad Ali Khan of Sadabad, who between them own six whole villages and portions of 13 others, assessed to a revenue demand of Rs. 24,900. The other large landholders are men of the trading and money-lending classes, the chief among them being Lalas Kundan Singh, Keshri Singh, Sita Ram and Kausal Kishor.

In 1881 the tahsil had a population of 108,305 persons; but the number fell to 102,103 at the following enumeration in 1891. At the last census in 1901 there were 108,886 inhabitants, of whom 50,018 were women. The average density is 605 persons to the square mile which is considerably above the district average and exceeds that of all tahsils except Muttra, where the rate is swollen by the inclusion of the large city population. Classified according to religions, there were 98,507 Hindus, 9,327 Musal­mans, 604 Jains, 382 Christians and 66 Aryas. Chamars are the predominant Hindu caste, while after them come Jats, 14,267; Rajputs, 13,202; Banias, 10,914; and Brahmans, 9,979. Other castes with over two thousand members apiece are Kolis, Gada­riyas, Barhais, Nais, Ahirs and Kayasths. Over one-third of the Rajputs belong to the Jaiswar elan, while the bulk of the remainder are Chauhans and Gahlots. The chief Muhammadan subdivisions are Telis, Bhishtis, converted Rajputs, Faqirs, Bhangis, Sheikhs and Pathans, but in no single case do their numbers exceed two thousand. The tahsil is entirely agricultural in character, practically the whole population being dependent on agriculture or the trade in agricultural produce for its livelihood. There is no industrial place in the tahsil and no manufactures of importance are carried on in it.

There are two towns, Sadabad, the headquarters, and Sahpau both of which are administered under Act XX of 1856; but besides these there are few places of any size or importance. Kursanda, a village containing a large number of hamlets, has a local population of 6,663 persons and is an old market town. Bisawar is another large village and market town, while Gutahra, Tasigau, Naugawan, and Jarau all possess over two thousand inhabitants. Lists of the markets, fairs, schools and post-offices of the tahsil are given in the appendix. Sadabad is well supplied with means of communication. The metalled road from Muttra to Jalesar road station runs across it from west to east, and the Dehli-Aligarh section of the grand trunk road passes at right angles to this from north to south. Unmetalled roads run from Sadabad to Rays, Muttra to Naugaon, and Baldeo to Kanjauli. The East Indian railway passes through the extreme east of the tahsil and has a station within its limits, known as the Jalesar road station.

In the days of Akbar the present tahsil of Sadabad was comprised in the mahals of Mahaban, Khandauli and Jalesar. About 1652 A.D., 200 villages were withdrawn from Jalesar by order of Sadullah Khan, Wazir of the emperor Shahjahan, and with the addition of 80 villages from Mahaban and seven from Khandauli were formed into a new pargana, in the centre of which a town was built and called Sadabad after its founder. It is not known when Sahpau was separated from it to become a distinct subdivision; but before the cession both Sahpau and Sadabad were held in jaidad by General DuBoigne for the maintenance of his brigade of troops. After the cession the two parganas were first placed under the collector of Etawah and in 1804 were attached to the then newly formed district of Aligarh. In 1815 they formed part of the sub-collectorate of Sadabad; but in the following year, while Sadabad remained subordinate to the collector of Aligarh, Sahpau was transferred with par­ganas Firozabad and Khandauli to Agra. The new Sadabad district was formed in 1824 and then Sahpau was included in it; and the pargana passed in 1832 to the new district of Muttra.

At the present day Sadabad constitutes a revenue and criminal subdivision in the charge of a full-powered officer on the district staff. In police matters the jurisdiction is divided between the police stations of Sadabad, Sahpau and Baldeo.

SAHAR, Tahsil CHHATA.

The town of Sahar is situated in 27°38'N. and 77°30'E., at a distance of 21 miles from Muttra. Unmetalled roads con­nect it with Chhata, Gobardhan and Jait; and close to it flows the Agra canal The village has an area of 4,235 acres and is owned by a community of Brahmans, the revenue demand being Rs. 4,416. At the beginning of the eighteenth century Sahar was a place of considerable importance wider the Jats, being the favourite residence of Thakur Badan Singh, the father of Suraj Mal. The handsome house which ha built for himself is now in rains, and the large masonry tank which adjoins it was left unfinished at his death and has never since been com­pleted, From 1838 to 1857 Sahar was the headquarters of the tahsil of Chhata, the tahsil offices being located in Thakur Badan Singh's residence; but at the Mutiny they were removed to Chhata where they have ever since remained. In the town are several old houses with carved stone gateways of some architec­tural pretensions; and the two tanks known as Mahesar-kund and Manik Daswala-kund. When Mr. Growse was collector of Muttra a dispute took place between the Hindus and Musalmans of the place regarding the possession of a site on which they wished to erect, the one a temple and the other a mosque. It appeared, however, that there had originally been a Hindu temple on the site which the Muhammadan had thrown down, building a mosque over it. This too had fallen and the ground had for some years remained unoccupied. The case, when brought into court, having been decided in favour of the Hindus, they com­menced the erection of a shrine on the spot. In digging the foundations the remains of an old temple were unearthed and rescued by Mr. Growse. They consisted of ten large pillars and pilasters in very good preservation and elegantly carved with foliage and arabesques, and also a number of mutilated capitals and bases. Two of the shafts bore inscriptions of the date sambat 1128 or 1072 A.D.

For some years Sahar was administered under the provisions of Act XX of 1856, but the Act was subsequently withdrawn. The population in 1881 numbered 2,776 souls and this had increased to 3,180 in 1901. There were in that year 2,222 Hindus, 951 Musalmans and seven persons of other religions in the place, the predominant Hindu caste being that of Brahmans. At the present time the village contains a third class police station, cattle-pound, primary school and post-office. Market is held every Wednesday

SAHORA, Tahsil MAHABAN

This village lies in 27°30'N. and 77°46'E., at a distance of between five and six miles from Muttra and Mahaban. It has a total area of 2,640 acres and is assessed to a revenue demand of Rs. 7,448, the zamindara being Brahmans of whom the chief is Bohra Gajadhar Singh. The original owners were Jats, and at the Mutiny they attacked the patwari and killed Khushi Ram, one of the tahsil Chaprasis, for which the share of Ram Sukh, the ringleader, was confiscated. In 1901 the population of the place numbered 2,305 souls, of whom 2,204 were Hindus and 101 were Muhammadans. The village con­tains a school and a market is held every Tuesday and Wednes­day. Sahora takes its name from a temple of Sahori Devi, and is the reputed site of the battle between Abd-un-Nabi, governor of Muttra in 1668 A.D., and some Jat rebels under one Kokila, in which Abd-un-Nabi lost his life.

SAHPAU, Tahasil SADABAD.

The town of Sahpau is situated in 27°26'N. and 78°9'E., a little off the metalled road to the Jalesar road railway station on the East Indian railway. It is distant 31 miles from Muttra and seven miles from Sadabad. The town is picturesquely situated with a large number of groves around it. The zamin­dars are Gahlot Rajputs, who trace their descent from Chitor and say that at one time they had as many as 52 villages in this neighbourhood. There is a considerable number of Banias in the place, who are either Baraseni Vaishnavas or Jaiswar Saraogis: the latter say they came from Chitor with the Rajputs. They have a modern temple dedicated to Nem Nath, where a festival is held in the month of Bhadon. It stands immediately under the site of the old fort, which is well-raised and covers an area of 13 bighas. The fort has yielded a large supply of massiveslabs of block kankar, which have served as materials for the construction of the basement storey of several of the houses in the bazar. Some late Jaini sculptures have been exhumed on the spot, and one of the most characteristic was removed by Mr. Growse to the Muttra museum. Outside the town, near an old indigo factory, is a raised terrace, sacred to Bhadra Kali Mata: on the top of it are placed numbers of late Jaini figures. A buffalo is here offered in sacrifice at the Dasahra festival. In a field by itself outside the town is a large square domed building which commemorates the self-immolation of a Rajput widow. Sahpau has been administered under Act XX of 1856 since the year 1859. It has an annual income of some Rs. 790, which is raised by the usual tax, and is expended in the maintenance of extra police, a small conservancy staff, and simple works of improvement in the town. The population has fluctuated: in 1881 it numbered- 3,623 persons. This figure fell to 3,431 in 1891, and in 1901 rose again to 3,611. Of this total 2,935 were Hindus, 385 Musalmans and 291 of other religions, chiefly Jains. The town contains a police station, pound, post-office, and both a boys' and a girls' school. Market is held on Sundays and Wednesdays.

The Village Sanitation Act (U. P. Act II of 1892) is in force in the town.

SEHI, Tahsil CHHATA.

This large village lies in 27°40'N. and 77°40'E., between the unmetalled Jait-Shergarh road and the Jumna river, at a distance of 16 miles north of Muttra and eight miles south-east from Chhata. The total area of the village is 4,795 acres and it is assessed to a revenue demand of Rs. 3,986. It is the centre of a clan of Rajputs who call themselves Bachhal from the Bachhban grove in the village. The Bachhban, however, is now only a grove in name and is accounted one of the hamlets of the town. In it is the temple of Bihari Ji, to which the Bachhals resort, the Gosains, who serve it, being accounted the Gurus of the whole community. A great part of the area of the village consists of broken ground and ravines and in addition to Bachh­ban there are four other hamlets, called respectively Odhuta, Garh, Devipura and Chhota Hazara. The old khera bears the name of Indrauli and is said to have been at one time the site of a large and populous town. It was certainly once of much greater extent than now; but there are no ancient remains nor traces of large buildings. It is still, however, a fairly well-to-do place, most of the houses in the bazar being of masonry con­struction and a few of them partly faced with carved stone. In the village are two small temples and outside it a semi-Muhammadan shrine, erected about 1860 by a Chamar named Khumani. In it are held two annual fairs on the day of the full moon in Baisakh and Kartik; these are attended equally by Hindus and Muhammadans and of the two ministers at the shrine one is a Brahman and the other a Musalman faqir. There is also a mosque which was built by two Pathans, Qasim Khan and Alam Khan of Panipat, who had a jagir of 24 villages, 12 here and 12 about Sonkh. The population of Sehi in 1901 num­bered 2,186 souls, of whom 2,038 were Hindus and 148 Musal­mans. Rajputs are the predominant Hindu caste; and the village forms part of the endowment of the Rangji temple at Brindaban.

SHAHPUR, Tahsil CHHATA.

Shahpur lies in 27°54'N. and 77`32'E.; it is situated on the right bank of the Jumna, 36 miles north-north-west of Muttra and nine miles north-east of Kosi, with which it is connected by an unmetalled road. The village was founded towards the middle of the 16th century, in the reign either of Sher Shah or Salim Shah, by an officer of the court known as Mir Ji, of Biluch extraction, who called it Shahpur in honour of his royal master. The tomb of the founder exists not far from the river bank on the road to Chaundras. It is a square building of red sandstone, surmounted by a dome and divided on each side into three bays by pillars and bracket arches of purely Hindu design. On the other side of the village, by the road to Bukharari, is another tomb in memory of Lashkar Khan, a grand-son of the village founder; it is solidly constructed of brick and mortar, but quite plain and of ordinary design. Nearly opposite is the hamlet of Chauki with the remains of a fort erected by Nawab Ashraf Khan and Arif Khan, upon whom Shahpur with other villages, yielding an annual revenue of Rs. 28,000, were conferred as a jagir for life by Lord Lake. There is a double circuit of mud walls with bastions and two gateways of masonry defended by outworks and in the inner court a set of brick buildings now fallen into ruin. This was the ordinary residence of the Nawab, and it was during his lifetime that Shahpur enjoyed a brief spell of prosperity as a populous and important town. It would seem that the fort was not entirely the work of Ashraf Khan, but had been originally constructed some years earlier by Agha Haidar, a local governor under the Marathas, who also planted the adjoining grove of trees. Under the Jats Shahpur was the head of a pargana.

The village has continued to the present day in the hands of Mir Ji's descendants, to one of whom, Fazil Muhammad, Shahpur is indebted for the large bagh of trees which makes the place one of the most agreeable camping-grounds in the district. In the village are three mosques, but all are small, as the Muhammadan population, though considerable, consists largely of Qassabs. A weekly market is held on Mondays. Shahpur contains a small school aided by the district board, and in 1901 had a population of 2,390 persons; of this number 874 were Hindus and 1,516 were Musalmans.

There is a ferry over the river at Shahpur, which is annually leased by the district board for some Rs. 100.

SHERGARH, Tahsil CHHATA.

Shergarh stands on the right bank of the Jumna, in 27°47'N. and 77°38'E. It is 22 miles distant from Muttra and eight miles distant from Chhata, with which it is connected by an unmetalled road. The town derives its name from a large fort, now in ruins, built by the emperor Sher Shah. The Jumna once washed the foot of the walls, and must have given the fort a distinguished appearance; but it is now more than a mile distant. The original zamindars were Pathans; but nearly the whole estate passed by purchase to Seth Gobind Das of Muttra. His successor sold the property to a resident Bania named Munna Lal, between whom and the Pathans there is now a continual feud. At the time of the Mutiny, considerable alarm was caused to the townspeople by the Gujars of the neighbour­ing villages, whose estates were afterwards confiscated and conferred on Raja Gobind Singh of Hathras. These Gujars are still turbulent, and the Shergarh police circle is the worst as regards cattle theft in the district.

Shergarh has been administered under Act XX of 1856 only since the year 1891. It derives an average income of some Rs. 825 from the chaukidari assessment. The population has fluctuated but is lower now than it was in 1872, when it numbered 5,305 persons. In 1881 the number had fallen to 4,712 and in 1891 to 4,415. At the last enumeration in 1901 there were 4,629 inhabitants, of whom 2,808 were Hindus, 1,735 Musalmans, and 86 of other religions. Shergarh contains a police station, pound, post-office, and middle vernacular school. A market is held every Thursday.

Besides the direct road to Chhata, other unmetalled roads lead from Shergarh to Jait and Kosi, on the west of the Jumna, and to Nohjhil across the river on the east. There is a ferry where the latter crosses the river, which is let yearly at an average sum of Rs. 700 by the district board.

The Village Sanitation Act (U. P. Act II of 1892) is in force in the town.

SONAI, Tahsil MAHABAN.

Sonai is a township on the road from Muttra to Hathras, in 27°34'N. and 77°54'E., which, like its neighbour Raya, finds no place in the revenue records, being there represented by eight independent villages, namely Thok Bindavani, Thok Gyan, Thok Kamal (better known as Khojna), Thok Saru, Thok Sumera, Bhurari, Nagara Bari and Nagara Jangali. The population of the united township in 1881 was 2,393 persons, and this rose to 3,124 in 1901. Of this number 2,726 were Hindus, 394 Musalmans and four of other religions. A fort built by Begam Umrao Shah in 1772, which in 1808 was held by Thakur Daya Ram of Hathras, was for some years after the cession used as a tahsili. But not a vestige now remains of the old buildings which were pulled down, the materials being used for the construction of a police station. The police station was later replaced by an outpost, and subsequently this too was abolished. Sonai contains a primary school, and markets are held on Sundays and Thursdays. The total area of the villages which compose the township is 2,274 acres and the revenue demand is Rs. 6,422, the zamindars being partly Jats and partly Musalmans.

SONKH, Tahsil MUTTRA.

The town of Sonkh lies in 27°29'N. and 77°31'E.; it is distant 16 miles from Muttra with which it is connected by an unmetalled road, the road passing on to Kumbher, the capital town of a pargana in Bharatpur territory. It is a thriving and well-to-do place with a large number of brick-built houses and shops, many of them with carved stone fronts. It is said by the Gosains to derive its name from the demon Sankhasur; but according to the local tradition it was first founded in the time of Anang Pal of Delhi, probably by the same Tomar chief who has left other traces of his name at Son, Sonsa and Sonoth. The ancestor of the present community was a Jat by name Ahlad, whose five sons-Asa, Ajal, Purna, Tasiha and Sahjua-­divided their estate into as many separate shares, which still bear their names and are to all intents and purposes distinct villages, with the Sonkh bazar as their common centre. The bazar lies immediately under the khera on the site of the old fort, of which some crumbling walls and bastions still remain. It was built by a Jat named Hati Singh or Jawahir Singh in the time of Suraj Mal of Bharatpur; but the khera itself must be many years older. There are two market places in the bazar; one belonging to the Sahjua and the other to the Purna zamindars. The market day for the former is Thursday and for the latter Monday; but a con­siderable amount of business is transacted every day of the week.

Under the Jat rule, Sonkh was the head of a taluqa. About a mile away, just across the Bharatpur border, at a place called Gunsara, is a fine masonry tank. This was the work of Rani Lakshmi, the consort of Raja Randhir Singh, who also built the beautiful kunj which bears her name on the banks of the Jumna at Brindaban. Where the road branches off to Gobardhan is a temple of Mahadeva with a masonry tank of considerable depth beside it. The avenue of trees between Sonkh and Gobardhan is a fine one and was almost entirely planted by a bairagi called Saligram.

Sonkh has been administered under Act XX of 1856 since the year 1859. It has an average annual income of Rs. 645, which is raised by the usual chaukidari assessment, and expended on the maintenance of extra police, a small conser­vancy staff, and in simple works of improvement within the town. The population has increased of late years. In 1881 the inhabitants numbered 4,126 persons; and though the number fell to 4,085 in 1891, it rose again to 4,579 in 1901. Of the whole num­ber 3,780 were Hindus, 787 Musalmans and 12 of other religions. The town contains a police station, pound, post- office and school.

The Village Sanitation Act (U. P. Act II of 1892) is in force.

SURIR, Tahsil MAT.

The village of Surir is situated in the centre of the Mat tahsil, not far from the left bank of the Jumna, in 27°46'N. and 77°44'E. It is 22 miles distant from Muttra and 10 miles from Mat, with which it is connected by an unmetalled road. The township, which has an area of 4,728 acres is divided into two thoks, called Bija and Kalan, and there are several subordi­nate hamlets. It is said to have been originally called Sugriv­khera, after the name of one of the different founders; and this explains the original of the present name Surir. The oldest occupants were Kalars, who were expelled by Dhakaras, and these in turn by Raja Jitpal, a Jais Rajput. His posterity still constitute a large part of the population, but have been gradually supplanted in much of the proprietary estate by Banias and Bairagis. In 1901 the population of Surir was returned as 5,093 persons, 4,630 being Hindus, 418 Musalmans and 45 of other religions, chiefly Aryas. It contains a police station, cattle-pound, post-office and primary school; Ad market is held every Monday in it. Rajputs are the numerically strongest Hindu caste; and the village is assessed to a revenue demand of Rs. 10,863. At the time of the Mutiny, Lachhman, the lumbar­dar, was arrested with eleven others on the charge (which, however, was not brought home to any of them) of having been concerned in the disturbances that took place at the, neighbouring village of Bhadanwara, in which the zamindar, Kunwar Dildar Ali Khan, of the Bulandshahr Lalkhani family, was murdered, his wife ravished and a large mansion that he was then building-totally wrecked.

TAROLI, Tahsil CHHATA

A large agricultural estate situated a little to the west of the unmetalled road leading from Jait to Shergarh. It is 15 miles north from Muttra, six miles south-east from Chhata, and lies in 27°41'N. and 77°36'E. The area of the village is 4,661 acres and the revenue demand amounts to Rs. 7,076. The original proprietors were the Bachhal Rajputs, who own a large number of villages in this neighbourhood; but it was sold to Dhusars in 1862. Subsequently half was resold in 1867 to Babu Durga Prasad of Brindaban, and the estate was separated into two distinct mahals. One now belongs to Narain Das and the other to Babu Kalyan Singh. The population of the village has increased from 2,380 souls in 1881 to 3,750 in 1901, Rajputs being the predominant caste. There were 3,515 Hindu inhabitants, 222 Muhammadans and 13 persons of other religions in the place. Taroli contains a primary school and market is held in the village every Monday. An annual fair is also held here on the day of the full moon in Kartik and two preceding days in honour of one Swami Bura Babu, who is supposed to have the power of miraculously curing skin diseases.

TASIGAU, Tahsil SADABAD.

This is a large agricultural village in 27°25'N. and 77°56'E., distant 18 miles from Muttra and six miles from Sadabad. It was founded by a Haga Jat from Susahar, called Adu Pal, and his descendants still own part of the village, the rest ling passed into the hands of Brahmans, Banias and other purchasers. The village has an area of 2,354 acres and is assessed to a demand of Rs. 7,302. It contains a primary school. Jats are the numerically strongest Hindu caste in the place, and of the total population of 2,251 persons Hindus number 2,167, Muham­madans 64, and persons of other religions 20.

USPHAR, Tahsil MUTTRA.

A village distant seven miles from Muttra in 27°26'N. and 77°38'E., on the unmetalled road to Sonkh. The village has an area of 1,247 acres and the population in 1901 numbered 2,089 persons, of whom 1,059 were Hindus and 1,030 were Muham­madans. The predominant Hindu caste is that of Kachhwaha Rajputs, the ancestral proprietors of the village; nearly the whole of the proprietary rights, however, have passed into the hands of Babu Narain Das, a Bania. The village contains a primary school and is assessed to a revenue demand of Rs. 2,751.

WAIRNI, Tahsil MAHABAN.

Wairni lies a little to the north of the metalled road from Muttra to Sadabad, near the town of Baldeo, in 27°26'N. and 77°51'E. It is distant 11 miles from Muttra and five miles from Mahaban; and is a large village inhabited for the most part by Chamars and Brahmans. The founders of the village were Kalals, who were succeeded by Jats; but the proprietary rights have passed almost wholly into the hands of Bohra Phul Chand. The area of the village is 3,099 acres and it pays a revenue demand of Rs. 6,944. The population has increased from 3,664 persons in 1881 to 4,137 persons in 1901. In the latter year Hindus numbered 3,905 and Musalmans 215, and there were 17 persons of other religions. There is a primary school in the village, and markets for grain and cloth are held every Tuesday and Saturday.