1885.] 
155 
F. S. Growse —Notes on the Fatehpur District. 
it lias been maligned. In fact I believe tliere is scarcely a district in 
India about which such a remark could be made with truth, though it 
is popularly stated with regard to many. Given a slight faculty of 
observation, every part of the country will be found to abound with 
interest, not only as regards relics of the past but also in indications 
of still existent powers and capabilities. 
Two classes of the community are deserving of special notice ; 1st, the 
Singraurs, for their singularity ; and 2ndly, the Gautam Thakurs, for their 
number and importance. The Singraurs are not mentioned by name in 
any book that I have seen ; not even in the local Gazetteer, where the 
people, who so style themselves, are included under the generic designa¬ 
tion of Lodhas. Of this tribe they may be an offshoot, but they differ 
in many respects from the common stock. They are found only in the 
Ekdala, Kliaga and Khakhreru Talisils, where they form almost the en¬ 
tire population of several villages and own a considerable quantity of 
land. As a corruption of the Sanskrit Sringavera, Singraur is the mo¬ 
dern name of the Ghat, in the Rawab-ganj Pargana of the Allahabad 
district, where (as is told in the Ramayana) Rama, Sita and Lakshman 
were ferried across the Ganges by the Rishad chief Guha. Rot only 
is there this identity of name, but the tribal designation Lodha (which 
is for lubdhiha ) is a fair equivalent in meaning to the classical Rishad. 
Some traditional connection between the people called Singraur and the 
place Singraur might therefore naturally be expected ; but so far as I 
could ascertain, none such exists. All the Singraurs of Ekdala bear the 
title of Rawat, which was conferred upon them by the Emperor Akbar, 
after a visit to that town, in which he was attended by his famous minis¬ 
ter, Birbal, whose mother’s sister lived there. All they could tell me as 
to their origin was that they came, in the time of the Pomars, from the 
neighbourhood of Banda, south of the Jamuna ; which is in exactly the 
opposite direction from the Singraur Gliat, on the Ganges, which is to 
the north. 
According to a very widely accepted tradition, the Gautam Tha¬ 
kurs once owned the whole of the present Fatehpur district, together 
with much adjoining territory on both sides of the Gauges. They claim 
descent from the Vedic saint Gotama, who is also the reputed ancestor 
of the Sakya tribe, of whom sprung the great Buddha ; whence, in many 
countries where his religion flourishes, he is popularly known by his 
patronymic, Gautama. The Gautam Raja had his principal seat at 
Argal, a small secluded village in the Kora Pargana, buried in the ravines 
of the river Rind. Possibly the old Fort was so named as forming a natu¬ 
ral ‘ bar,’ or barrier (which is the meaning of the Sanskrit argala) against 
the approach of an invader. Similarly, Rind or Arind, the name of the 
