1919.] The Rajput Kingdoms of Mediaeval Chhattisgarh. 205 
containing about a dozen villages a piece, is shown in complete 
etail. There is also i in a letter (No. 172, dated the 13th July 
Provinces, which I obtained from the Sambalpur District office) 
a go ae reference to a class of persons in Kalahandi described 
“ Paters or hereditary heads of Garhs’’ while the latest 
Caaetter (1910) refers to the former existence of Umrahs or 
Khond Chieftains holding on tenures intermediate between the 
BAe, and the people. These are all indications that a system 
formerly existed in Kalahandi closely — that which I 
have sketched for Chhattisgarh in para. 4a 
CHAPTER III. 
THe GarH OR CHAURASI. 
14. It would be flogging a dead horse to elaborate at 
length the evidence in support of the existence of Chaurasis 
or tracts of 84 villages. Yet reference to “* 84 village tracts ’”’ 
is constantly found in official reports. evidently without the 
writer realizing how purely conventional this number is. In 
the absence of any other collective reference either to the 
countries, or to their gece a with the <— a brief summary of 
the evidence on these points may be giv 
The locus lagen as regards the tgs . District 
of 84 villages is the notice at page 47, Vol. f Beame’s 
Memoirs of the North-West Diavinnse-—an heaps Roos of Sir 
H. Elliott’s Glossary of Indian terms. This very full account 
will be referred to more than once in the following pages. 
instances of Chaurasis are there collected and the prt claims 
si 
‘ (sic) is a Bundela Chaurasi....The Parganah of Tezgarh in 
““Damoh is a Chaurasi and the errs Rajputs have a 
“ Chaurasi in Garha Mandla...... There is a Chaurasi of 
hakara Rajputs in Fattehpur of Tt abeneabedk and in 
“Sobhapur of the same District there is one of Gujars,”’ = so 
on. 
