HISSAR, municipal town and administrative headquarters of Ilissar district, Panjab, lat. 29' 9' 51" N., long. 75° 45' 55" E. ; population (1868), 14,133. The district, lying between lat. 3G' and 29° 49' N., and long. 75° 16' and 27° 22' E. ; area, 353,973 square miles ; population, 484,681. Hissar forms the western border district of the great Bikanir (Bickaneer) desert. It consists for the most part of sandy plains dotted with scrub and brushwood, and broken by undulations towards the south, which rise into hills of 800 feet, like islands out of a sea of sand. The soil is in places hard and clayey, difficult to till, but when sufficiently irrigated, highly productive. In these spots water is only reached at a depth of from 100 to 130 feet ; the cost of a masonry well is seldom below X150. The sandy tracts are not 'Infrequently swept by storms, which greatly alter the face of the country. The jhul (Salvadora oleoides), the kavi or leafless caper -(Capparis aphylla), and the jharberi (Zizyphus napeca) abound ; their berries serve as food in times of scarcity. It has been much harried. After Nadir Shah ravaged the land, the Sikhs began their inroads ; the Bhatti of Bhattiana struggled for superiority ; and from 1795-1802, George Thomas, an Irishman, fought for dominion. Early in the mutiny of 1857, the local levies at Hansi and Hisear revolted, and all Europeans were either murdered or compelled to fly. The
Bhatti rose under their hereditary chiefs, and-the majority of the Mahomedan population followed their example, but were suppressed by a force of Panjab levies, aided by contingents from Patiala and Bikanir, under General Van Courtlandt.
The Thar Rajputs (13,921) possess five or six villages. The Bhatti, now Mahomedans (22,008), trace their descent front Jesal, of the Yadubansi stock. Both Thar and Bhatti were marauding desert tribes. The Pachada, or men of the west, now Mahomedans, are also of Rajput descent. A religious sect known as Bishno worship their founder, Jambbaji, as an incarnation of Vishnu, and, bury their dead in a sitting posture, in the floors of their houses or cattle-sheds. They con skier even the touch of tobacco polluting. At their marriages, passages from the Mahomedan Koran and the Hindu Shastras are indiscrimi nately recited. They avoid destroying life, and inter any animal accidentally killed. The decayed town of Agroha is interesting, as being the original scat of the great mercantile class of Agarwala.
There are rock-cut inscriptions at Tosham.—Imp. Gaz.