Rajput dominions run south of the Gogra, and thence across the Ganges into the Arrah district (Bhojpur). The chief Rajput districts are Bikanir, Jeysulrnir, Merwara, Mewar, Ajmir, Jeypore, Bundi, Kotah, and Malwa.
The clans are of course the aristocracy of the country, and they hold the. land to a very large extent either as receivers of rent or as culti vators. As united families of pure descent, as a landed nobility, and as the kinsmen of ruling chiefs, they are also the aristocracy of India.
There are four Rajput chiefs near the Colehan, viz. the rajas of Mohurbunj and Porahat, the Koer of Seraikilla, and the Thakur of Khursowan.
The Rajputs, under the Bengal government, are chiefly to be found in Behar.
Rajputs obtained a footing, and now occupy several estates in the Allahabad district. These incursions of the Rajputs seein to be the founda tion of the present proprietary rights in the land. Each pargana has a separate and distinct tribe, although in a few estates other denominations of Rajputs are to be found. The Rajputs seem to have had their particular leaders,—who, after locating themselves and their followers, displaced the original inhabitants by degrees, and extended themselves as far as they could. Thus in pargana Jhausi the Bads Rajputs trace their origin to two leadeta, viz. Bowani and Jutan ; to the descend ants of the former the large estate of Mowaya wins allotted, and to those of the latter the nine estates. SOIDO entire mottzahs in each of theae taluks were subsequently assigned to different branches of the family, and the remainder held jointly by all, but as they are now divided into separate estates, the holdings are strangely inter mixed, as in some of the villages nine taluks have shares, not, however, of any one distinct portion, but they are divided field by field; and as in process of time sales and mortgages took place, and some of the fields became the property of other estates, the intermixture has greatly in creased. There are innuinemble subdivisions of them in 3falwa, and extending from Behar anti lienares through the N.W. Provinces of India up to the Panjab.
Mr. (now Sir) George Campbell, writing of them, says they are no doubt of Aryztn origin, and are part of a later movement than the branch who came dowu by the Saraswati, and up to the latest dates have shown themselves a brave people, delighting in war and in bloodshed; and they are not supposed by Mr. Campbell to be the old
Kshatriya race, noticed in the early Brahrnanical books as existin,g many hundred years before the Christian era, though they have taken the place assigned to the Kshatriya. They undoubtedly arrived iu the north-west of India long after the country bad been occupied by Dravidian, Kolarian, and Mongoloid races, and after the north-eastern Panjab and Cis-Sutlej districts seem to have first been a Bralima.n, then a Rajput country, and subsequently advanced upon by the Jat.
The Baghel, also Waghel, is a Rajput tribe in Rewa. The Baghel are a branch of the Scsodia Rajputs of Gujerat, who migrated to the east, and gave tbeir name to Bagheleund or Rewa, but others of the tribe have spread through Bundelkhand, Allahabad, Benares, Cawnpur, Gorakhpur, and Farrakhalaad.
The Bais has obtained a place amongst the thirty-six royal races, though Tod believed it to be a subdivision of the Suryavansi, as it is neither to be met with in the lists of Chund, nor in those of the Komarpal Charitra. It is now a numerous tribe, and has given its name to an extensive district, Baiswara in the Doab, or the land betsveen the Ganges and Jumna.
The Baia intermarry with the Chauhan, Kaelt walla, and others. They claim to have come from Manji Paithan in the Dekhan, and to be descendants of its king Salivaltana, A.D. 78.
The Bhcati are of the Yadubansi race, and rule in Jeysulmir, and give their name to the Matti country between Hissar and Garhi. It is not clear whether the Bhatti of Bhattiana were originally Rajputs or really are Yuti or Jat.
The B;rgujar, one of the thirty-six royal races of Ilajputs, are settled along the Jumna from Roltilkhand to Matura; some are Muhammadans.
The Bundela is a Rajput tribe descended from ' the Gathwar of Kantit and Khairagarh, who settled in I3undelkhand in the 13th or 14th century, and gave their name to that province.