167 
1877.] Gonr Das By sack —JVotes on Khdnja Khan Oarh. 
Portions of tlio early account of tlie Bishnpur raj appeared in tlie Hindu, 
Patriot , when that paper was under the able editorship of the late Haris 
Chandra Mukerjee, and those numbers of the Patriot furnish the substance 
of the account given of the raj by subsequent writers.* 
The early history of Bengal is clear in regard to the one fact that the 
Bishnpur raj dates from very ancient times, and that it had its existence 
long before the arrival of the Muhammadans in Bengal. The Rajas 
of Bishnpur were never subject to Muhammadan rulers. At intervals 
the Muhammadans invaded Bishnpur, and plundered and ravaged the 
country. Sometimes they experienced defeats, and fled, leaving behind 
them all their baggage and treasure in the hand of the victors. This state of 
things cannot properly be called subjection, and it does not appear probable 
that the Bishnpur raj was within the fiscal jurisdiction of Bangbara Khan. 
Oil the death of Khanazad Khan, he was succeeded in his office by his 
son Gardai Khan. After the death of Gardai Khan, we hear of one Ghazi 
Khan passing his days at the place as a Zamindar and Aimadar. In his 
time the importance of the Bard wan Raj-family was well established, and he 
was a dependent Zamindar of the Raja of Bardwan, who gave him the title 
of Chaudhuri. It was in the time of Ghazi Khan that the English got 
possession of Bengal. 
At the beginning of the English rule, much of the heritage of the 
Khan family which they had held from the days of the Nawab to 
those of the Chaudhuri, was transferred to other hands. The son of 
Ghazi Khan was ’Abdur-Rahman Khan, on whose death ’All Naqi 
Khan became the heir of the family property; he married a daughter of the 
Musalman Raja of Nagor in Birbhum. ’Ali Naqi Khan departed this life 
at the age of sixty. While ’Ali Naqi was still living, the land survey and 
settlement of Bengal began. At the death of ’Ali Naqi Khan, his son 
Tafazzul Husain Khan was a minor of only four years of age, and on the 
death of the latter, his son Tasadduq Husain Khan became the heir. He 
is still living, enjoying his ancestral heritage. He has a little son, but 
no daughter. It is remarkable and worth noting that from Bangbara 
Khan to Tasadduq Husain Khan, no one had a brother or a sister. The 
family has hitherto continued and been represented by a single male scion 
in each generation, an occurrence as rare as it is singular, nay almost 
unprecedented in a genealogy consisting of so many as seven or eight 
generations. Very little is now left for the support of the family. They 
eke out a bare subsistence from the few acres of land in their possession. 
Vide also Col. Gastrell’s Eeport on Bishnpur ; and Grant’s Yth Report. 
