==============+=========+==============+========
District. | Hindus. | Muhammadans. | Total.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~+~~~~~~~~~+~~~~~~~~~~~~~~+~~~~~~~~
Sahâranpur | 7 | 233 | 240
Muzaffarnagar | | 33 | 33
Meerut | 34 | 134 | 168
Bulandshahr | | 3 | 3
Aligarh | | 6 | 6
Mathura | | 7 | 7
Agra | | 11 | 11
Farrukhâbâd | | 11 | 11
Mainpuri | | 6 | 6
Bareilly | | 1 | 1
Bijnor | | 54 | 54
Budâun | | 37 | 37
Morâdâbâd | 66 | 26 | 92
Shâhjahânpur | | 2 | 2
Pilibhît | | 17 | 17
Cawnpur | | 7 | 7
Fatehpur | | 6 | 6
Hamîrpur | | 10 | 10
Allahâbâd | | 10 | 10
Jâlaun | | 32 | 32
Ballia | | 29 | 29
Gorakhpur | | 6 | 6
Tarâi | | 112 | 112
Lucknow | | 1 | 1
Râê Bareli | | 17 | 17
Sîtapur | | 1 | 1
Sultânpur | | 13 | 13
Bârabanki | | 27 | 27
+~~~~~~~~~+~~~~~~~~~~~~~~+~~~~~~~~
Total | 107 | 852 | 959
==============+=========+==============+========
Bisen.—A powerful sept of Râjputs found in considerable numbers in the
Allahâbâd, Benares, Gorakhpur, and Faizâbâd Divisions. The head of the
sept is the Râja of Majhauli, in Pargana Salempur Majhauli, of
Gorakhpur. They as well as the Donwâr (q.v.) claim descent from one
Mayûra Bhatta, who is said to have been a descendant of Jamadagni Rishi
of the race of Bhrigu. Regarding this personage the local tradition is
very vague. Some say he came from Hastinapur and was the son of one
Aswathâma; others that he was an emigrant from Mahârâshtra or the
Marhatta country. He read Sanskrit for a while at Benares, and became a
proficient in astrology. Quitting that city at last under a divine
impulse he settled at Kakradih, a village in Pargana Sikandarpur, of
Azamgarh. The whole of that Pargana came gradually under his authority.
His domestic arrangements illustrate a period when the bonds of caste,
as we know them, were unknown. He is said to have had three
wives,—first a Brâhmani named Nâgseni; the second Sûrajprabha, a
Sûrajbans Râjputni; the third Haikumâri, a Gautam Bhuînhârin. By his
wife Sûrajprabha he had a son, Biswa or Bissu Sen, who was the ancestor
of the Bisen sept of Chhatris; by Haikumâri, Balkal or Bagmar Sahi, the
ancestor of the Bhuînhâr families of Kuwâri and Tamkûhi; by Nâgseni,
Nages, Nagesar or Nâgsen; and by a Kurmin concubine Indradawwan Mal,
from whom sprang the Mals of Azamgarh, of whom a separate account will
be given. He expelled the Bhars, and finally went on a pilgrimage to
the Himâlaya, where he died. There are thus a family of Misr Brâhmans,
and a large half Kurmi clan which claim common descent with the
Majhauli Bisen family.
[The Gonda branch.] 2. “In the reign of Akbar and with the fall of the
Kalhans rule, the Bisens, who subsequently, under the Râjas of Gonda,
took a leading position among the trans-Ghâgra powers appear for the
first time on the stage of history. The clan is one of the most
numerous in Eastern Oudh, and is scattered in clusters of small
Zamîndâri communities throughout the Districts of Gonda, Faizâbâd, and
Partâbgarh, with the river Kuâno for its northern and the Ganges for
its southern limit. Its principal seat is beyond the boundaries of Oudh
at Majhauli, in Gorakhpur, and its members differ from those of many of
the other ruling clans in having no recollection of a departure from
some distant home in the West, and being unable to connect their
countless houses by any intelligible pedigree. They admit that they are
Bhûmiya Thâkurs, or indigenous, as far as they can ascertain, in their
present territory. It is true that they assert their descent from a
common ancestor, Mayûra Rishi; and in thus deriving themselves from a
mythical religious character outside the distinctions of caste, agree
with others of the less aristocratic among the local Chhatri families
who are unable to claim any connection with the heroes of the Solar and
Lunar races. The ties of common clanship are very vaguely recognised,
and I believe that the Bisen of Majhauli has always declined to confirm
them by eating with even the great homonymous chieftains of Gonda and
Râmpur, in Faizâbâd. Those settled in Oudh were all of them before the
time of Akbar in the position of ordinary village zamîndârs, dividing
their inheritance among all the males on the ordinary coparcenary
principles, and it was not till later that the title and position of
Râja were acquired by a few fortunate houses to the extreme north and
extreme south of their settlements. At the centre, in Faizâbâd, they
always remained in a subordinate position.” [127]
[The Partâbgarh branch.] 3. Of the Faizâbâd branch Mr. Carnegy
writes:—“What their claim may be to being placed under the Sombansi
line is not clear. Their avowed chief is the Râja of Majhauli, in
Gorakhpur. In Oudh we have no less than thirteen chiefs of this clan,
and their colonies are principally to be found in the Partâbgarh
District, but also in Bahrâich, Gonda, Daryâbâd, and Sultânpur. The
local heads are the Râja of Kâlakânkar, and the Râjas of Manikpur and
Bhinga. Sir H. M. Elliot affirms that the present Râja of Majhauli is
in the one hundred and fifteenth generation from Mayûra Bhatta, the
devotee. The Oudh branch state that they broke off from the parent stem
in the person of Râê Hûm, and settled in the Province under the wing of
Mânik Chand, the then powerful Gaharwâr Râja of Manikpur, he who so
happily picked up the foundling mother of all the Kânhpuriya clan.
Within the last few years the Râja of Majhauli took to himself a wife
from the Râjkumâr house of Dera,—a sure indication that the Bisens
(indigenous devotee Chhatris of Gorakhpur though they be) are higher in
the social scale than the Râjkumâr offshoot of the Mainpuri ex-convert
Chauhâns.”
[The Gorakhpur branch.] 4. From Gorakhpur it is now reported that they
intermarry with the septs of the Sirnet, Hayobans, Baghel, Chauhân,
Chandel, Gaharwâr, Sûrajbansi, Râjkumâr, Chandrabansi, Sombansi,
Gautam, Kausik, Gandhwariya, Hâra, Kachhwâha, Râna, Nâgbansi and Jâdon.
In Jaunpur they take brides from the Bais, Nikumbh, Chaupat Khambh, and
Kharagbâns, and give girls to the Nikumbh, Raghubansi, Bachgoti,
Râjkumâr, and Sombansi. In Gonda they are reported to give brides to
the Sirnet, Raikwâr, Janwâr, Chauhân, Kalhans, Bhadauriya, and
Kachhwâha, while they receive girls from the Bandhalgoti, Râjkumâr,
Palwâr, Sûrajbans, Bais, Chauhân, Kalhans, and other high class
Râjputs.