Kir. [520]--A cultivating caste found principally in the Hoshangabad
District. They numbered about 7000 persons in 1911. The Kirs claim
to have come from the Jaipur State, and this is borne out by the
fact that they still retain a dialect of Marwari, though they have
been living among the Hindi-speaking population of Hoshangabad for
several generations. According to their traditions they immigrated
into the Central Provinces when Raja Man was ruling at Jaipur. He was a
contemporary of Akbar's and died in A.D. 1615. [521] This story tallies
with Colonel Sleeman's statement that the first important influx of
Hindus into the Nerbudda valley took place in the time of Akbar. [522]
The Kirs are akin to the Kirars, and at the India Census of 1901 were
amalgamated with them. Like the Kirars they claim to be descended from
the mythical Raja Karan of Jaipur. Their story is that on a summer day
Mahadeo and Parvati created a melon-garden, and Mahadeo made a man
and a woman out of a piece of kusha grass (Eragrostis cynosuroides)
to tend the garden. From these the Kirs are descended. The name may
possibly be a corruption of karar, a river-bank.