MANDLA, a town and district in the Jubbulpur division of the Central Provinces, on the right bank of the Nerbadda. The district lies between lat. 22° 14' and 23° 22' N., and long. 80° and 81° 48' E., with Rewah and part of the Balaspur district on the east, and Seoni, Balaghat, Raipur, and Balaspur on the south, with an area of 4719 square miles, and in 1877 a population of 223,883. It is a wild highland region, and 1724 feet above the sea.
While the rani Durgavati, widow of Dalpat Sa, was regent, A.D. 1564, Asaf Khan, the Dehli viceroy, invaded Mandla. Durgavati opposed him, but she was defeated near Singaurghar in Jubbul pur district, and she fell back on Gallia, and then on Mandla, where she took up a strong position in a narrow defile. Asaf Khan renewed the action, and suffered a check, but the next day he brought up his artillery and renewed the battle. The rani, though wounded, defended the pass in person, but the river in the rear of her army began to rise, and the Gond troops, alarmed at their retreat being cut off, broke and fled. Durgavati snatched a dagger from her elephant driver, and plunged it into her bosom and died.
The aboriginal tribes consist of Ahir, Baiga, Basor, Gauli, Gond, Dher, Mhar or Dhimar, Kach'hi, Kol, Kurmo, Yelo, Lodho, Teli, Panka, Marar, Mehra.
The original inhabitants of this district are un doubtedly the Gond and Baiga, who at the present time form the larger share of the popula tion. Next to these are Brahman families, some
of whom affect to trace back their arrival in Mandla to the time of Jadhava Raya in Samvat 415 (A.n. 358), though it is much more probable that they settled here in the reigns of Hirde Sah and Narendra Sah, from Samvat 1663 to 1788 (A.D. 1606 to 1731). The former of these two kings introduced a number of foreigners into the country, especially a large colony of Lodhia, who settled in the valleys of the Banjar, Motiari, and Nerbadda, gave the name of Hirde nagar to the taluka thus brought into cultivation, and did much by digging tanks and otherwise to colonize the best parts the district. The Mahto are the best cultivatbrs, are Hindus, origin \ ally of the Teli caste, and f rmerly resident at Maihir. The Mandla Gond i divided into two classes, which again are subdivi d into forty-two different clans or got. The two classes are the Raj Gond and the Rawan Bansi. ' The former is the higher, and outdo the highest east Hindus in the matter of purifying themselves analsfp+4.,them in all their religious ceremonies. They wear I . Jane° or Brahmanical thread, and consider them selves deeply insulted if compared in status with a Gond. Mr. Hislop says that they carry their passion for purification so far that they have the faggots with which their food is cooked sprinkled with water before use. See Gond. •