=============+=========
Districts. | Number.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~+~~~~~~~~~
Farrukhâbâd | 4
Shâhjahânpur | 874
Pilibhît | 16
Cawnpur | 2
Lucknow | 3
Sîtapur | 4,220
Hardoi | 2,145
Kheri | 3,923
+~~~~~~~~~
Total | 11,187
=============+=========
Harischandi.—A Vaishnava sect who take their name from the celebrated
Râja Haris Chandra, whose legend is thus told by Prof. Dowson:
[503]—“He was the twenty-eighth King of the Solar race and son of
Trisanku. He was celebrated for his piety and justice. There are
several legends about him. The Aitareya Brâhmana tells the story of his
purchasing Sunahsephas to be offered up as a vicarious sacrifice for
his own son. The Mahâbhârata relates that he was raised to the heaven
of Indra for his performance of the Râjasûya sacrifice and for his
unbounded liberality. The Mârkandeya Purâna expands the story at
considerable length. One day while Haris Chandra was hunting he heard
female lamentations, which proceeded from the Sciences, who were being
mastered by the austerely fervid sage Viswamitra, and were crying out
in alarm at his superiority. Haris Chandra, as defender of the
distressed, went to the rescue, but Viswamitra was so provoked by his
interference, that the Sciences instantly perished, and Haris Chandra
was reduced to a state of the most abject helplessness. Viswamitra
demanded the sacrificial gift due to him as a Brâhman, and the King
offered him whatever he might choose to ask—gold, his own son, wife,
life, kingdom, good fortune, whatever was dearest. Viswamitra stripped
him of wealth and kingdom, leaving him nothing but a garment of bark
and his wife and son. In a state of destitution he left his kingdom,
and Viswamitra struck Saibya, the queen, with his staff to hasten her
reluctant departure. To escape from his oppressor he proceeded to the
holy city of Benares, but the relentless sage was waiting for him and
demanded the completion of the gift. With bitter grief wife and child
were sold, and there remained only himself. Dharma, the god of justice,
appeared in the form of a hideous and offensive Chandâla and offered to
buy him. Notwithstanding the exile’s repugnance and horror, Viswamitra
insisted upon the sale, and Haris Chandra was carried off bound,
beaten, confused, and afflicted, to the abode of the Chandâla. He was
sent by his master to steal clothes from the graves in a cemetery. In
this horrid place and degrading work he spent twelve months. His wife
then came to the cemetery to perform the obsequies of her son, who had
died from the bite of a serpent. They recognised each other, and Haris
Chandra and his wife resolved to die upon the funeral pyre of their
son, though he hesitated to take away his own life without the leave of
his master. After all was prepared he gave himself up to meditation of
Vishnu. The gods then arrived headed by Dharma and accompanied by
Viswamitra. Dharma entreated him to refrain from his intention, and
Indra informed him that he, his wife, and son had conquered heaven by
their good works. Haris Chandra declared that he could not go to heaven
without the permission of his master the Chandâla. When this difficulty
was removed, Harischandra objected to go to heaven without his faithful
subjects. This request was granted by Indra, and after Viswamitra had
inaugurated Rohitaswa, the king’s son, to be his successor, Haris
Chandra, his friends and followers, all ascended in company to heaven.
There he was induced by the sage Nârada to boast of his merits, and
this led to his expulsion from heaven. As he was falling, he repented
of his faults and was forgiven. His downward course was arrested, and
he and his followers dwell in an aerial city, which, according to
popular belief, is still occasionally visible in mid air.”
2. The Harischandi Faqîrs follow the principles which Haris Chandra
taught his Dom master during the period of his servitude. Most of them
are Doms, and they are found in small numbers in these Provinces. They
appear to adopt merely a belief in Vishnu as the Creator of the
universe.
Harjala. [504]—A small tribe found only in Sîtapur and Kheri. According
to their own account of themselves they were once Guâl Ahîrs, and after
the capture of the fort of Chithor they were obliged to wander away in
the disguise of Jogis and other beggars. As they used to assume all
sort of disguises they were called Harcholiya (har, “every,” chola,
“body”), which was afterwards corrupted into Harjala. Another story
represents the word to be derived from the fact that they will drink
water from any one’s hand, (har, “every;” jal, “water”). They are
divided into three exogamous sections—Bahrâichi, Khairâbâdi, and
Lakhnawi, which take their names from their places of residence,
Bahrâich, Khairâbâd, and Lucknow. The Census Returns add Baranikali,
Brempuri, (possibly a corruption of Ibrahîmpuri), Guâlbans, and Lodh,
the last two of which would connect them in some way with Ahîrs and
Lodhas. They are all Hindus. Their occupation is begging in the
disguise of Jogis and other regular mendicants. They sing a special
song known as Sarwan, which is said to be originally a lament for the
Rishi Sarwan who was accidentally shot by Râja Dasaratha as he was
taking his blind father and mother slung in a basket over his shoulders
to a place of pilgrimage. The legend has been localised at a place
called Sarwan, in Pargana Maurânwân, of the Unâo District. [505] Some
of them keep buffaloes and sell ghi; others cultivate and live by
cutting grass and day labour.