203 
1874.] J. Wise —On the Bcirah Bhuyas of 'Eastern Bengal. 
On the north of this temple is a large reservoir, called “ K£sab ma ka 
Dig’hi,” after a slave belonging to Chand Bai. 
On the south of the river Padma, at A'ra Phulbaria, these Bhuyas 
resided, where there is a piece of land still called Kedar Bari, and a large 
tank constructed by the two brothers. 
After the death of Chand Bai and Kedar Bai nothing is known of the 
family. The elder branch, it is said, became extinct, but the descendants 
of a younger son still survive, and reside at Mulchar, south of Munslnganj. 
From this family the parganah of Bikrampur passed into the hands of 
a Baidya family, the Chaudharis of Nayapara, who had been servants of the 
Bhuyas. They were Samaj-pati of their caste, and held the most prominent 
position among the landholders of Bikrampur. Tradition states that they 
had 700 slaves attached to their establishment, and that they gave away a 
great portion of the parganah in small taluks to Brahmans and others. 
Several of these grants are still recognised as “ independent taluks” by the 
English Government. Towards the end of last century, Baja Baj Ballabh, 
the famous but unscrupulous Diwan of Dhaka, took from them the Samaj- 
pati rank which they had so long held, and assumed it himself. The river 
Padma shortly afterwards washed away their princely residence, and they, 
too, like the Bhuyas, disappear from history. 
III. Lak’han Ma'nik of Blialuah. 
Over the parganah on the east of the Megna ruled Lak’han Manik 
Bhuya, and his residence was at Blialuah. 
The history of this family, according to Bengali tradition, is as follows : 
Baja Bishambhar Bai, of the low class of kayasths called Sur, had under¬ 
taken a pilgrimage to the sacred shrine of Sitakund in the Chittagong 
district. His boat was anchored one night alongside a sandbank in the 
river Megna. While sleeping he had a dream that he had settled in that 
place and had become king of all the adjoining districts. The dream he 
regarded as a divine revelation, and he determined to act in accordance 
with it. In the morning, he mistook, in the broad reaches of the river, the 
direction he was going. He therefore called the place Blialuah, from the 
Hindi bhulna , to mistake ! The exact date of this fiction is given as the 
10th of Magh, 610, Bengali year, or A. D. 1203, the same year in which the 
first Muhammadan invasion of Bengal under Bakhtyar Khilji took place. 
There are, however, many reasons for doubting the accuracy of this date. 
According to the pedigree preserved in the family, Baja Lak’han Manik was 
seventh in descent from Bishambhar Bai, while the interval between the 
death of the one and the birth of the other must have been at least 350 
years. 
