Art. XVIII.—The Bhar Tribe

Extract

This race, variously known by the terms Râbhar, Bharat, Bharpatwa, and Bhar, once inhabited a wide traot of country extending from Gorakhpur in Northern India to Saugor in Central India. Other tribes, such as the Cherûs, the Majhwârs, and the Kôls, were, in places, associated with them, or contiguous to them; but there is good reason to believe that the Bhars greatly outnumbered them all. They were very powerful in Oudh; and the country lying between Benares and Allahâbâd, on either side of the Ganges, a tract of about seventy miles in length, was almost exclusively in their possession. The entire district of Allahâbâd also was originally in their hands, and traces of them are still to be seen in every pargannah, more especially in those situated across the Ganges and Jamna. Their forts there, called Bhar-dîh, some of which are of vast size, are very numerous; and they have the credit of having excavated all the deep tanks which now exist. The pargannah of Khairogarh bears very abundant traces of their toil and enterprise. The stone fort of that name, of immense proportions, is said to have been their work.