OF BHARATAVARSA OR INDIA. 
67 
descended from the old Bhar nobility, who themselves claim 
to have been formerly Ksatriyas. They do not eat swine's 
flesh as the Bhars do, and this abstention is regarded as an 
indication of greater respectability. AH these races are now 
very much mixed. The Bhars are often mentioned together 
with the Cherus. 
We possess very little information about the ancient 
history of the Bhars. Legend associates their name with 
the earliest Aryan heroes, e.g., with Ha ma and his sons, but 
the Bhars suddenly disappear fi'om the scene, and, so far 
as history is concerned, reappear just previously to the 
Mahommedan invasion of India, at which period they cer- 
tainly possessed a vast territory, and were indeed the real 
owners of the soil. 
In fact the Bhars must have once ruled over a great area 
of country stretching from Oudh in the west to Behar in the 
east and Chota Nagpur, Bundelkund and Sagar in the south. 
Their name still survives in Bahar, Bahraich (Bharaich), 
Bara, Baragaon, Bara Banki, Barhapara and Barwan in 
Oudh, in Bareilly, Barhaj, Barhar (or Bharhar) in the 
North- Western Provinces, in Bar, Barabar, Baraghi and 
Barhiya in Behar, in Barva in Chota Nagpur, and in many 
other places.^® Bara in Oudh is said to have been founded 
Singraull, who are generally classed as Ahlrs, may probably bear some 
relation to the Bhars, though no trace can now be had of their descent. 
Th(! Cherus also are sometimes said to be a branch of the Bhars. . . It ia 
strange that no trace of Bhars is to be found in the Puranas, unless we may 
consider that there is an obscure indication of them in the ' Brahma 
Purana,' where it is said that among the descendants of Jayadhvaja are the 
Bharatas, who, it is added, ' are not commonly specified from their great 
number, ' or they may, perhaps, be the Bhargas, of the Mahabharata, 
subdued by Bhim Sen on his Eastern expedition. The Bhars consider 
themselves superior to Eajbhars, notwithstanding the prenomen of Raj, 
but this claim to superiority is not conceded by the Eajbhars. They do not 
eat or drink with each other." 
See Harivamsa XXXIII, 53 : Bharatasca suta jata bahutvSnnanuklrttitah. 
See The Bhars of Audh and BanAras, by Patrick Carnegy, Com- 
missioner of Rai Bareli, Oudh, printed in the Bengal Asiatic Journal, vol. 45, 
p. 303 : " The pai ganas of Bhardoi, Bharosa, Bahraich, and Bharoli and the 
