JOURNAL 



OP 



THE ASIATIC SOCIETY, 



No. 68.— August, 1837. 



I. — History of the Gurha Mundala Rajas. By Captain W. H. Sleeman, 

 Commissioner for the suppression of Thuggee in the Nerbudda Provinces. 



The dominions of the Gurha Mundala or sovereigns extended 

 before the death of Sungram Sa', in the year A. D. 1530, over fifty- 

 two districts, containing each from three hundred and fifty to seven 

 hundred and fifty villages, and collectively, no less than thirty-two 

 thousand two hundred and eighty, as exhibited in the annexed geo- 

 graphical table. But the greater part of these districts were added 

 to their dominions by the conquests of that prince, and their previous 

 history I shall not here attempt to trace. 



These princes trace back their origin in the person of Jadoo Rae to 

 the year Samvat, 415, or A. D. 358, when by the death of his father- 

 in-law, the Gond raja Nagdeo, he succeeded to the throne of 

 Gurha. Mundala was added to their dominion by Gopa'l Sa", the 

 tenth in descent from that prince, about the year A. D. 634 in the 

 conquest of the district of Marroogurh from the Gond chiefs, who had 

 succeeded to the ancient Haihaibunsi sovereigns of Rutunpore and 

 Lahnjee. That this ancient family of Rajpoots, who still reign at 

 these places, reigned over Mundala up to the year A. D. 144 or 

 Samvat, 201, was ascertained from an inscription in copper dug up 

 during the reign of Niza'm Sa' (which began A. D. 1749) in the 

 village of Dearee in the vicinity of that place. This inscription was 

 in Sanskrit upon a copper plate of about two feet square, and pur- 

 ported to convey, as a free religious gift from a sovereign of the 

 Haihaibunsi family, the village of Dearee in which it was found, to 

 Deodatt a brahman, and his heirs for ever. Niza'm Sa' was very 

 anxious to restore the village to one of the descendants of this man, 

 but no trace whatever could be found of his family. The plate was 

 4 L 



