1844.] the Kumaon and Rohilcund Turaee. 891 



sons, indeed, are found who deny the continuity of the dynasty alto- 

 gether;* but, be that as it may, the historian of the Turaee has 

 almost nothing to tell concerning any of the line previous to the 44th 

 generation. Roodur Chund, son and successor of Rajah Kullean Chund, 

 (who removed the capital from Chumpawut to Almorah, and built 

 that city in 1620 St. or 1563 a.d.,) was a contemporary of the 

 Emperor Akbar, and, in the course of his reign of 28 years, made 

 frequent visitations to the Turraee, and, not to leave himself without 

 record in the land, became the founder of Roodurpoor. 



6. But, what is meant by the Turaee in Akbar's time? To what 



Roodur Chund— Extent extent of lowland dominion did Roodur Chund 

 of Kumaon Turaee in his , n A1 . , . ,. 



time. succeed r Although an hereditary, was the 



Turaee an undisturbed possession of Kumaon in preceding times? 

 On a reference to co-temporaneous history, we find that the year 

 1194 a. d., is the date generally fixed for the conquest of Kanovj 

 by the arms of Kutb-ud-Deen, the Lieutenant of Shahab-ud-Deen, 

 and, also, that 1195 a.d., saw him extend his victories across the 

 Ganges to Budayoon. It is, I think, extremely probable, that an 

 incorrect tradition may have anticipated the commencement of the 

 Chund dynasty in Kumaon by sixteen years; and that, in the great 

 revolution which transferred the empire of the Gangetic plain as far 

 as Benares from the Rahtores to their Mahommedan victors, when 

 the dispersion of numerous powerful Hindoo tribes took place every- 

 where, among them the earliest Chund and his followers found their 

 way to Kumaon. But, whether the elevation of this race in the 

 hills preceded or followed the fall of the Kanouj kingdom, the shock 

 of that fall may well be supposed to have reached to the foot of 

 the Himalya, and hardly to have been arrested at Budayoon, and 

 the lower parts of Kuttair. The rule of the hill powers, whether 

 Khussia or Chund, if it had survived at all the decadence of the 



* It seems a matter of universal tradition that between the 8th and 9th succes- 

 sion of Chunds, a second Khussia Raj intervened ; and also, that until the 11th of 

 the line, by name Lutchmee Chund, some representatives of the old Kuttoora dy- 

 nasty possessed a limited power at Kuttoor itself ; but that in the reign of this 

 Rajah, they were subdued by violence, or absorbed among the mass, or otherwise 

 disappeared, and " the land knew them no more," 



