1877.] 
227 
Notes on the 23liars and other Early Inhabitants of Bundelhhand .— By 
Vincent A. Smith, B.A., B.C.S. 
(With one plate.) 
The origin, history and fate of the Bhar # tribe have long afforded 
material for speculation and enquiry to students of local antiquities and 
history in the eastern districts of the N. W. P. and Audh, but hitherto no 
attempt seems to have been made to trace the westward extension of the 
race, or to collect any information concerning it in the districts west of 
Allahabad and Banda. The following notes are the result of observations 
and enquiries made in the Hamirpur District during the last two years, 
and, incomplete and fragmentary though they are, they will I hope be 
found to supplement usefully the information previously collected by ob¬ 
servers in the eastern districts and to throw some light on the history of 
the Bhar tribe. 
The Census returns of 1872 give the total number of Bhars in the 
N. W. P. as 243,462, and of Baj Bhars as 13,481, the grand total being 
256,943 : the district detailsf show that the tribe is now almost exclusively 
confined to those eastern districts which were formerly included in the 
Province of Benares and in the kingdom of Audh : the census figures may 
not perhaps be perfectly accurate, but they certainly indicate correctly in 
a general way the distribution of the tribe throughout the N. W. P. 
It will be observed that not a single Bhar is recorded as residing in 
any of the Bundelkhand districts ; it is, however, well known that the 
Bhars were once numerous in Banda, and the information which I have 
collected proves that in former times they lived in every part of the Hamir¬ 
pur District, and were even found in the Jhansi District west of the Dha- 
san Biver : how much farther west they may have extended I have at present 
no means of judging, but it is evident that the tribal movement has been 
from the west eastwards, and it would therefore appear that the answer to 
the question 6 who were the Bhars’ ? should be sought, not, as has hitherto 
been done, in the localities where the} r have been driven to bay, but rather 
in those western regions from which they emigrated. 
The former presence of the Bhars in the Hamirpur District is attest¬ 
ed by the traditions, which will be presently described, and by local names 
in every pargana. A few examples of such names out of many may be of 
* The name is usually spelt ‘ Bhar’, hut the spelling i Bharr’ would more ac¬ 
curately represent the pronunciation. 
f Details are :— 
Ea'jbhar.—J aunpur (256) : A’zamgarh (316) : Ghazipur (5,631) : Gorakhpur 
(1,464) : Basti (5,814). Total 13,481. 
Bhar.— Meerut (22) : Badaon (14) : Agra (130) : Kanhpur (1248) : Allahabad 
G G 
