1868.] Proceedings of the Asiatic Society. 87 



You are well aware that tins place is the former capital of the long 

 race of Solar Kings which began with Ikshaku, which included in 

 its number, Dasaratha, Raghu, and Ramachandra, and. which ended 

 with the expulsion of the last of them, Eaja Dirigbow, who fled to 

 the south, probably about the time that Raja Nanda or his son 

 Chandra Grupta of the Sudra caste, who lived in the days of 

 Alexander the Great, overwhelmed and suppressed the Rajputs. 



According to Hindu annalists, the Rajputs were altogether annihi- 

 lated in the interests of Brahmana, by Parasurama ; and, after several 

 generations, they were recreated on Mount A boo, in view to their fight- 

 ing the battles of Brahmanas against the Budhists. Be that as it may, 

 there is no doubt that the Rajputs gained head again in these parts 

 contemporaneously with the Mahommedan conquest, and have since 

 well maintained their influence. 



It is said that, driven from all the great centres of Rajput power 

 and Hindu devotion by the Mahommedan conquerors, the KshatiTyas 

 took refuge in flight ; and betook themselves, amongst other places, to 

 Ayodhya, their old seat of empire, whence the Bhars had driven them, 

 creating colonies wherever they went. 



Now, my own theory is that the Rajputs were neither exterminat- 

 ed nor wholly driven hence ; that the more respectable and influential 

 clansmen may have fled before the then dominant Sudra rulers ; but 

 that the mass of the Kshatriyas remained and were, in fact, no other than 

 the Bhars; and that the final overthrow of these degraded Bhars, after 

 the fall of Delhi, was neither more nor less than the restoration of Raj- 

 put influence iu these parts, and the social reclamation of the so-called 

 Bhars. 



The weight of opinion seems to be in favour of the argument that 

 the Bhars were an aboriginal people. Mr. Thomason says that the 

 inhabitants of these parts in Rama's time are known to us by the name 

 of Raibhars. Sir Henry Elliot pronounces them to be " one of the 

 aboriginal races of India," and he traces affinity between them and 

 Churns, Bhiyas, Bhutias, and perhaps Bhils and Ahirs. 



Elphinstone hazards the observation that such aboriginal races as 



these just named, were probably the monkeys that formed the mythi- 



i cal army of Rama. Lastly, one of the most intelligent natives of my 



