146 
F. S. Growse —Notes on the Fatehpur District. 
[No. 3, 
However this may be, and, so far as I am aware, there is no autho¬ 
rity in the Mahabharat for the above legend, the town, when it again 
reappears in local history, is still styled Haswa and its Raja bears the 
cognate name of Hans-raj. After the defeat of Jay Chand, of Kanauj, and 
his brother Manik, near Karra (in the Allahabad district near the Fateh¬ 
pur border) Kutb-ud-din with his two sister’s sons, Kasim and ’Ala-ud- 
din, is stated to have advanced against Haswa. Hansraj came out to 
meet them, and joining in single combat with ’Ala-ud-din at a village 
called Chaklieri, there lost his life. ’Ala-ud-din also lost his head, but 
the headless trunk fought its way on to Haswa, a distance of 12 miles. 
His dargah , on the top of the old Fort in the centre of the town, is still 
held in much veneration, and is said to mark the spot where at last he 
fell and was buried. 
At the present day the town of Haswa is almost entirely surrounded 
by a broad shallow sheet of water. This has been deepened at one end 
and brought into more regular shape as a tank, in the centre of which is an 
island, measuring 165 feet square and faced on all four sides with flights 
of masonry steps. It is approached from the town by a bridge 150 feet 
long, consisting of 15 arches, of which 7 are open and 8 closed. Its 
construction is ascribed to a Kazi Yakub, who, it is said, was afterwards 
put to death by the Emperor Akbar, and that the circumstances are related 
in the Zuhur-i-lcutbi. This is a book with which I have no acquaintance ; 
but I find it recorded by Badaoni that Kazi Yakub was suspended by 
the Emperor, his offence being that he had maintained* it was illegal 
for a Muhammadan to marry more than four wives, as Akbar had 
done. 
In the century immediately preceding the Muhammadan conquest, 
the Fatehpur District would seem to have been exceptionally rich in 
temples of the same style as those that still commemorate the power of 
the Cliandel dynasty in Bundelkhand, across the Jamuna, at their 
ancient capitals of Mahoba and Khajurao. But, on this side of the river, 
those that were built of what is generally supposed to be the more dura¬ 
ble material, stone, have all been destroyed, and nothing of them now re¬ 
mains in situ beyond their foundations. The sculptured superstructure 
has been razed to the ground, and the fragments either buried on the 
spot or dispersed in the neighbouring villages, where they may be seen 
lying about in the lanes, or built up into the walls of the houses and 
modern temples. 
The only two specimens of the style still left standing are both of 
brick; one at Tinduli, near the busy market-town of Bindki, on the road 
to the Mauhar Railway Station; which is shown in the accompanying 
