

302 P. Camegy—The Bhars of Audi and Bandras. [No. 3, 



In regard to the third class, it is always invidious to enter into details 

 of pedigrees, but a few amongst very many available instances may be given. 

 The Kanpiiria is one of our most important clans ; so is the Bandelgot. 

 In twenty generations according to the members, both these pedigrees are lost 

 in obscurity ; but what the world says is this, that they are the offspring of 

 mal-alliances between two Brahman brothers, and women of the Ahir and 

 Dharkar castes. The Amethia is not an unimportant clan. They call them- 

 selves Chamar-gor Eajpiits, and their generations are not longer than the 

 others named. What the world says of this, is that a Chamar-gor is the 

 offspring of a Chamar father and a Gor-Brahman woman. Moreover within 

 the memory of man, an Amethia Chief has, according to Sleeman, taken to 

 wife the grand-daughter of an ex-Pasi Chowkidar, and raised up orthodox 

 seed unto himself. The Eaotars are another numerous clan with but half 

 the number of generations, and with precisely a similar parentage as the 

 Kanpiirias (Brahman- Ahir) . Their name is taken from Eawat, an Ahir 

 Chief. The Pulwars are influential and numerous, and of these it is said that 

 they are descended from a common ancestor, who had four wives, of whom 

 one only was of his own status, the others being a Bharin, an Ahirin and 

 another low caste woman. Here we have a Hindu-Bhar origin freely 

 admitted. The Bhalesaltan clan, also, is comparatively modern, and of 

 equivocal Ahir origin. There are numerous families of Bais, too, who are 

 in no way related to the Tilokchandi Bais of Baiswara. The former are 

 modern and equivocal, the term Bais being, it may be mentioned, the most 

 ready gate by which enlistment into the fraternity of Bajputs could former- 

 ly be achieved. The most proud and haughty of our clansmen have not 

 been slow to take to themselves wives from the mammon ol unrighteous- 

 ness, in the shape of the daughters of those whom we nave shewn above to 

 be of equivocal origin, and so in the result, their offspring, our contempora- 

 ries, are little better than their neighbours. Add to this the fact that 

 owing to daughters being as a general rule put to death as soon as they 

 were born, wives had almost invariably to be purchased, through those who 

 were as great adepts at cheating in respect of caste, as horse-dealers are 

 elsewhere, in passing- off screws, and it will be admitted that it really does 

 not very much signify who the fathers of Audh were, for if its mothers 

 were not Ahirs and Bhars, there is no certainty that they were at all better 

 than if they had been members of those classes. Finally, all those land- 

 owning families who can only urge an indigenous origin, must, whether 

 they admit it or not, recognize the fact that they are descendants of Bhars 

 tor every acre of land was owned, and the country was throughout peopled! 

 by these alone, and by no others. 



The next point to which we shall refer is language. Notwithstanding 

 the evidence we have that Audh was peopled by the solar race of Hindus 



■HHHWH 



