DWAR. Jim% A gate or entrance. A term applied to the mountain passes leading from the plain at the foot of the Himalaya into Bhutan, also to the rich and fertile level tract itself. The Dwar are occupied by an Indian race. They are 18 in number. Their breadth varies from 10 to 20 miles, and their extreme length 220. They are in a narrow tract extending alma the foot of the lower range of the Himalaya, and very unhealthy, and are inhabited by the Mdch or Kachari and the Koch'h or Rajbansi, in all alout 37,047. The Eastern Dwars is a flat strip of country lying beneath. the Bhutan mountains, intersected by numerous streams, and overgrown with wild vegetation. The West Dwars include the tract of country at the base of the Bhutan hills from the Tista river to the Sunkos river on the east. It is about 25 miles broad, and terminates on tho northern limits of Rungpore, Koch'h Behar. The Bhutan government had been guilty of raid.s and of grossly insultin„o• a British ambassador, and in 1863 to 1865 the Dwars were seized and annexed. The Mech are cognate to the Koch'h, Kachari, Garo,- and Rabha. They are widely scattered over all N.E. Bengal, being able to support life in the malarious Terai that continuously fringes the first slopes of the Himalayas. The social dition of the Mech is very low. They are mioiatory, and their marriages are by abduction, at they are honest and trustworthy. Rajbansi is a name assumed by those Koch'h who have adopted Gaz.; Ann. Ind. Adm. xii. p. 87. D1VARA, a portal, a door, the Celtic Dorras. Amongst all nations of antiquity, the portal had its peculiar veneration. To pass it was a privilege regarded as a mark of honour. The Jew Haman, in the true oriental style, took post at the king's gate as an inexpugnable position. Natives of India visiting prorninent men, or attending court, alight at ft distance from the portal. The most pompous court in Europe takes its title from its porte, the bab or door, where, as at Udaipur, all alight. The tripolia or triple portal, the entry to
the magnificent terrace in front of the Udaipur rana's palace, e,onsists, like the Roman arcs of triumph, of three arches, still preserving the numeral sacred to the god of battle, one of whose titles is Tripmi, which may be rendered Tripoli, or lord of the three places of abode, or cities, but applied in its extensive sense to the three worlds, heaven, earth, and hell. From the Sanskrit Pola, we have the Greek Polis, gate or pass ; and in the guardian or Polioh, or Dwara palaka, the doorkeeper or porter ; and the English language is indebted, not only for its portes and porters, but its doors (dwara). Pylos signified also a pass ; so in Sanskrit these natural barriers are called Pala, and hence the poetical epithet applied to the aboriginal mountain tribes of Rajasthan, namely, Palipati and Pala-Indra, lords of the pass. Nat'hdwara is the most celebrated of the fanes of Krishna, the Hindu Apollo. Its etymology is the portal ' (dwara) of the god' (nat'h), of the same import as his more ancient shrine of Dwarica or Dwarka. Nat'hclwara is 22 miles N.N.E. of Udaipur, on the right bank of the Bunas. Although the principal resort of the followers of Vishnu, it has nothing very remarkable in its structure or situation. It owes its celebrity entirely to the image of Krishna, said to be the same that bad been worshipped at Mathura ever since his deification, between eleven and twelve hundred years before Christ. As con taining the representative of the mildest of the gods of Hind, Nat'hdwara is ono of the most frequented places of pilgrimage, though it must want that attraction to tho classical Hindu which the caves of Gaya afford.—Tod's Rajasthan, i. pp. 323–'589.