CIRCAR. In the Mahomedan land revenue system, a circar was a subdivision of a subah. The N.W. Provinces of India, excluding the Saugor and Nerbadda territories, comprised no cotnplete subah, but only nortions of the four subahs of Agra, Allahabaa, Dehli, and Oudh. Each subah was divided into a certain- number of circars, and each circar into parganas or mahala (which are used as equivalent expressions); and the parganas again were aggregated in dastoors or districts ; and as the pargauas of the same dastoor are of course always contiguous, the dastoor statement in old registers, if copied with any regard to correctness, frequently forms a very hnportant means of the verification of doubtful names. Subab is an Arabic word, signifying a head of money, or a granary. Circal. (Sir-kar) is literally a chief, a supervisor. Das toor, besides signifying a rule, is also a minister, moonsbee. Pargana means taxpaying land, as well as a perfume composed of various ingredients. The title of subalidar, or lord of the subali, is long subsequent to Akbar's time. Siphasalar was the only designation of the emperor's viceroy in each subah.
Circars is a political appellation of a large tract of country between lat. 15° 40' and 20° 17' N., running from the Chilka lake to 3lotapilli, along 470 miles of sea-coast, with a breadth of from 70 to 100 miles of low country, an area of 17,000 geographical miles, watered by the Kistna, the Godavery, and Gondecama ; and three or four British districts have been fortned out of it, viz. part of Ganjam, Vizagapatam, Godavery, Kistna, and Guntur, and part of Nellore district, between the Eastern Ghats and the bay. From the 5th to the 11th centuries, the Kesari, or Lion kings of Orissa, held sway there, followed by the Gajapati dynasty in the north, and Narapati in the south, then by the Bahmani, the Kutub Shahi and the Asof Jabi. They were ceded to the French in 1753, and to the British E. I. Company in 1759, after Colonel Forde's suc cessful attack on Masulipatam in April of that year. They contain the important towns of Ganjam, Chicacole, Vizianagram, Vizagapatam, Coringa, Yanoor, Masulipatam, Ellore, and Nizam patmam.—Annals Ind. Adm. xi. p. 243; hap. Gaz.