Mathura A Gazetteer-16

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General Features Agriculture And Commerce The People Administration And Revenue History Directory of Places - A . B . C . D . E . F . G . H . J . K . M . N . O . P . R . S . T . U . W

MATHURA A GAZETTEER,
edited and compiled by, D.L. DRAKE-BROCKMAN [1911]

DIRECTORY

MAGORRA, Tahsil MUTTRA

This town lies in 27°24'N. and, 77°34'E., twelve miles west-south-west of Muttra and two miles north of the metalled road to Bharatpur. The real name of the place is Mangotla, and it was, both under the Mughals and the Jats, the head of a revenue subdivision: it is also reputed to be a place of great antiquity. After being long deserted it was resettled by a family of Tomar Rajputs who divided it into four estates, which they called after their own names—Ghatam, Ram, Ajit and Jajan. These four pattis are now to all intents and purposes distinct estates with the Magorra bazar as their common centre, and there is no such mauza as Magorra. The population of the united township in 1901 was 4,759 persons, 4,445 being Hindus, 312 Muhammadans and two of other religions. Jats are the numerically strongest Hindu caste, and the zamindars are a mixed community of Jats, Banias and Brahmans. The total area of the pattis that form the township of Magorra is 4,359 acres and the revenue demand is Rs. 5,945. A weekly market is held every Thursday, and there is a primary school in the place, besides a railway station on the Nagda-Muttra railway.

MAHABAN, Tahsil MAHABAN

The headquarters town of the tahsil of the same name lies in 25°27'N. and 77°45'E. near the left bank of the Jumna. It is distant some six miles from Muttra on the metalled road to Sadabad, and may be approached either by the railway bridge near Muttra city or by the bridge-of-boats over the river on the direct road, some two miles further south.

Though the country in its neighbourhood is now singularly bare the name Mahaban denotes that there must have been at one time a wood in the loeality; and so late as the year 1634 A.D., the emperor Shahjahan ordered a hunt here and killed four tigers. The connection between Muttra and Mahaban has always been of a most intimate character; for, according to the legend, Krishna was born at the one and cradled at the other. Both places too make their appearance in history together, having been sacked by Mahmud of Ghazni in 1018 A.D. From the effects of this catastrophe it would seem that Mahaban was never able to recover. It is casually mentioned by Minhaj as one of the gathering places for the imperial army sent by the emperor Altamsh against Kalinjar in 1234 A.D. and the emperor Babar incidentally refers to it, as, if it were a place of importance still, in the year 1526 A.D. At the present day, however, though it is the seat of a tahsili, it can scarcely be called more than a considerable village. One or two large private residences have been built since 1870 with fronts of carved stone in the Muttra style; but the temples are all exceedingly mean and of no antiquity. The largest and also the most sacred is that dedicated to Mathura nath, but it is only built of brick and plaster. There are two other small shrines of some interest: in one the demon Trinavart is represented as a pair of enormous wings overhanging the infant god; the other bears the dedication of Maha Mall Rae "the great champion prince," a title given to Krishna.

A great part of the town is occupied by a high hill, partly natural, partly artificial, where stood the old fort. This is said to have been built by the same Rana Katira of Mewar to whon is ascribed also the fort at Jalesar. According to one tradition he had been driven from his own country by the Musalmans and took refuge with the Raja of Mahaban, by name Digpal his son Kant Kunwar married Digpal's daughter, and apparently succeeded to his father-in-law's dominions. He made a grant of the whole township of Mahaban to his family priests, who were Sanadh Brahmans; their descendants bear the title of chaudhri and still own shares in Mahaban known as thok chaudhriyan. The fort was recovered by the Muhammadans in the reign of Ala-ud-din by Sufi Yahya of Meshed, who intro duced himself and a party of soldiers inside the walls in litters disguised as Hindu ladies who wished to visit the shrines of Shiam Lala and Rohini. The Rana was killed, and one-third of the town was granted by the sovereign to Sufi Yahya. The place where he was buried is shown at the back of the Chhathi Palna, but is unmarked by any monument. The share granted to him is still owned by his descendants and is known as thok Saiyidat.

The shrine of Shiam Lala still exists as a mean little cell, perched on the highest point of the fortifications on the side which looks towards the Jumna. It is believed to be the spot where Jasoda gave birth to Maya, or Joganidra, substituted by Vasudeva for the infant Krishna. But by far the most interest ing building is a covered court called Nanda's palace, or more commonly the Assi-Khamba, i.e., the eighty pillars. In its present form it was erected by the Muhammadans in the time of Aurangzeb out of old materials to serve as a mosque, and, as it now stands, it is divided, by five rows of sixteen pillars each, into four aisles or rather into a centre and two narrower side asiles, with one broad outer cloister. These columns were certainly sculptured before the sack of Mahaban in 1018, and it is possible that they are the wreck of several different temples. The Bud dhist character of the building or buildings which supplied the columns is decided by the discovery of Buddhist remains let into parts of the building. Krishna's reputed cradle, a coarse struc ture, covered with calico and tinsel, still stands in the pillared hall, while a dark blue image of the sacred child looks out from a canopy against the wall. The churn from which he stole his foster-mother's butter is shown, and consists of a carved stone in which a long bamboo is placed, while a spot in the wall is pointed out as the place where the sportive milk-maids hid Krishna's flute. In addition to the steady stream of devotees from all parts of India, the pillared hall is resorted to by Hindu mothers from the neighbouring districts for their purification on the sixth day after childbirth, whence the building derives its local name of the Chhatthi Palna, or place of the Chhatthi Puja, i.e.,"the sixth day of worship." Mahaban was doubtless the site of some of those Buddhist monasteries which the Chinese pilgrim Fa-Hian distinctly states existed in his time on both sides of the river; and the town is probably the site intended by the Kliso boras or Clisobora of Arrian and Pliny.

Mahaban has been administered under Act XX of 1856 since the year 1859. It has an annual income of Rs. 1,150 which is raised by house assessment in the usual way, and expended in the maintenance of extra police, a small conservancy staff and in the carrying out of small improvements. The popula lation has steadily decreased of late years: in 1872 it numbered 6,930, but at the last enumeration in 1901, the number of inhabitants was returned at 5,523, of whom 2,640 were women. Classified according to religion there were 3,711 Hindus, 1,791 Musalmans, and 21 others. The town has a police station, cattle-pound, middle-vernacular school, and a post-office. A weekly market is held on Wednesdays. The Village Sanitation Act (U. P. Act II of 1892) is in the force in town.

MAHABAN Tahsil

Mahaban tahsil which is conterminous with the pargana of the same name lies between the parallels of 27°14' and 27°41' north latitude and 77°41' and 77°57' east longitude. The tahsil lies wholly to the east of the Jumna river which forms its boun dary on the west and south; tahsil Mat is on the north, tahsil Sadabad on the south-east, and parganas Gorai and Mursan of the Iglas and Hathras tahsils of the Aligarh district are on the north-east. The tahsil is somewhat irregular in shape. It narrows to a point on the extreme north, where it runs wedge-like between parganas Mat and Gorai; and in the extreme south it juts out into two narrow promontories, near Akos and Nera, which are almost encircled by the Jumna. In the centre the pargana widens considerably and opposite the city of Muttra it reaches its maximum breadth of fourteen miles. Its maximum length from Nimgaon to Sehat is thirty-two miles, or nearly two and a half times its greatest breadth. The most striking physical feature that distinguishes the tahsil from other parganas situated in the Doab further east is the fact that it borders the windings of the Jumna river for at least fifty miles. For a distance varying from one to three miles inland from the high banks of the stream the effect of the river on the character of the country is most marked. This belt of country is uneven in surface, broken up either by ravines or obtrusive sand-hills. The ravines do not here run in an unbroken chain along the whole course of the stream but often entirely disappear, giving place to the sand-hills which are a more common feature of the landscape higher up the river; while in those parts where these sandhills are most developed the ravines never extend far inland and are nowhere very deep, rugged or intricate. Thus from Panigaon to Muttra city, where for a distance of six miles the river sweeps in an outward curve from the Mahaban bank, there are no ravines of any consequence, but a series of sandhills instead; while on the opposite side, along the road from Muttra to Brindaban, the ravines are both deep and extensive. After the Muttra railway bridge is passed the curve of the river changes, and ravines begin to appear in Gopalpur. These get wider and deeper as Gokul is approached; but beyond Gokul the river takes a sudden bend outwards, and in that bend the soil is a pure drifting sand. Beyond this bend the curve of the river again turns inwards with the result that ravines are found at Jogipur, Nabi pur and Nurpur; next comes the loop of Sherpur and Bassi with its heavy sand, followed in turn by the most marked inward curve in the pargana. This extends from Bassi to Nagla Azim, and in it extensive ravines, the worst in the tahsil, are formed. This belt of sand and ravines is for the most part uncultivated, and exercises but little influence on the general rent-rate of the pargana. It is valuable for grazing purposes, as some of the ravines are wooded with scrub jungle, and in the sandy tracts sarpat grass grows in profusion. As soon as the zone influenced by the river is passed the country becomes level and uniform in surface, similar in almost every respect to the tahsil of Sadabad. The prevailing soil is good piliya or light loam. As in Sadabad isolated tracts of bhur or sand occur oven in this inland por tion, but they are on the whole of comparatively small area. If the conventional soils demarcated at the last settlement be divided among the natural soils that most closely correspond to them, 78 per cent. of the cultivated area in the upland is piliya, 14 per cent. is bhur, 7 per cent. is puth and one per cent. is tarai. Owing to the continuous action of the river the area and conformation of the Jumna valley or khadar land change yearly, as well as the proportion of it under cultivation. The soil is all alluvial and, as a large portion of it depends on the nature of the deposit left by the yearly flood, it varies in quality from year to year. The higher fields under the bangar cliff are generally of firmer soil and of better quality than those which are subject to inundation.

As the total area is thus apt to vary from year to year a better idea of the conformation of the tahsil will be gained from an average taken over a series of years than from the statistics of a single year. Thus for the five years ending in 1907 the total area amounted on an average to 153,697 acres or 240.1 square miles. Of this only 12,199 acres or 7.93 per cent. were recorded as barren waste, including, besides the land unfit for cultivation, that which was covered with water or with sites, roads, buildings and the like. The culturable area out of cultiva tion amounted to 19,209 acres or 12.49 per cent., well over half or 11,333 acres being returned as old fallow. During the same period the area under the plough averaged 122,288 acres or 79.56 per cent. of the whole, a higher proportion than in any other tahsil except Sadabad. Of this acreage 37,254 acres on the average were irrigated. Cultivation is close and good, and irrigation is extensively practised; but the area twice-cropped within the year averages only 12,101 acres or 9.88 per cent. of the cultivation, a smaller percentage than in any other tahsil except Sadabad. For many years the Mahaban and Sadabad tahsils were remark able for the amount of irrigation carried on from wells; but the continuous fall in the spring level from the famine of 1877-78 onwards and the increasing brackishness of the water in the wells which became alarming after the famine of 1896-97 seriously curtailed the available supply and resulted in a diminu tion of the area so irrigated. Since the opening of the Mat branch extension of the canal however, at the end of 1903, a marked improvement has taken place; and, of the total area watered during the five years ending in 1907, 17,648 acres have on an average been watered from the canal as against 19,557 served by wells. It is probable that as irrigation from the canal develops wells will be to a large extent displaced by the canal. At the same time the spring level in the wells will probably rise and the quality of the water will be improved. Another effect of canal irrigation will be to check the growth of the weed baisuri, which is prevalent in the tract extending from Raya on the north-west to Bisawar in Sadabad on the south-east. The kharif is the principal harvest and averages some 78,083 acres as against 55,503 acres sown in the rabi. The chief crops grown are juar, cotton and bajra, alone or mixed with arhar, in the autumn, and barley, alone or in combination with gram, and wheat in the spring. Small areas are devoted to maize, guar or khurti, moth, gram and peas.

The excellence of the cultivation in Mahaban is almost entirely due to the presence of the careful and industrious Jat husbandmen. These form about half the whole agricultural population; the other chief cultivating castes being Chamars, Brahmans, Rajputs, Ahirs, Barhais and Gadariyas. In 1907-08 proprietors as such held 16.23 per cent. of the holdings area, occupancy and ex-proprietary tenants 31.08 per cent., and tenants at-will 51.28 per cent., the small remainder being rent-free. Mahaban contains 201 villages, at present divided into 736 mahals. Of the latter 124, representing 13.02 per cent. of the area of the tahsil, are in the hands of single landholders, 109 or 10.16 per cent. are held in joint zamindari, 209 or 23.62 per cent. in perfect pattidari, and 246 or 45.08 per cent. in imperfect patti darri tenure; while six or less than one per cent. are recorded as bhaiyachara. The rest of the tahsil, 7.28 per cent. comprised in 42 mahals, is held revenue-free. Jats own 50,600 acres or just one-third of the pargana, and are closely followed by Brahmans with 44,632 acres or 29 per cent. After them come Banias 25,020, and Musalmans, 6,306 acres. The largest proprietor in the tahsil is Bohra Gajadhar Singh of Jagdispur in Mahaban who owns portions of 32 villages assessed to a revenue demand of Rs. 28,690. Ten whole villages and parts of four others are held by Raja Datt Prasad Singh of Mursan who pays revenue to the extent of Rs. 6,389; while Babu Kalyan Singh of Muttra holds portions of eight villages assessed in all to Rs. 3,900. The wealth iest proprietors of the Bania caste are those residing at Raya. The head of the family is Lala Radha Ballabh, an honorary magistrate. Among the Musalmans the Saiyids of Mahaban take the first place, having claims to an ancient and honourable pedigree.

In 1881 the tahsil had a population of 116,829 souls, and since that time the total has steadily increased. At the folio wing enumeration of 1891 the number had risen to 133,488, while in 1901 there were 136,566 inhabitants, of whom 62,520, were females. The average density is 569 persons to the square mile—a higher figure than in any other tahsil of the district except Sadabad and Muttra, in the latter of which the rate is swollen by the inclusion of a large city population. Classified according to religions there were 126,655 Hindus, 8,973 Musalmans, 582 Christians, 195 Jains, 158 Aryas and three Sikhs. Jats are the most numerous Hindu caste, numbering 32,842 persons, while after them come Brahmans, 23,150. Chamars, 17,915 and Banias, 8,704. Other castes with over two thousand members apiece are Gujars, Bairagis, Lodhas, Koris, Barhais, Nais, Kumhars and Rajputs. The last named are fewer in Mahaban than in any other tahsil of the district, and of the clans specified at the census the best represented were Chauhans and Gahlots. On the other hand converted Rajputs formed the most numerous subdivision of the Muhammadan population, and were followed by Qassabs, Sheikhs and Julahas. The tahsil is mainly agricultural in character and there is no commercial or industrial centre in it, practically the entire population being dependent for its live lihood on agriculture or the trade in agricultural produce.

There are four towns in the tahsil which are administered under Act XX of 1856. Mahaban is the headquarters of the tahsil establishment; Gokul and Baldeo are important religious centres, and Raya is a township and market town, situated on the Cawnpore-Achnera railway. Besides these there are some large and important villages, such as Wairni, Pachawar, Akos, Daghaita, Barauli, Karab and Sahora, which are agricultural estates containing over two thousand inhabitants. Lists of the markets ,fairs,schools and post-offices will be found in the appendix.

The communications of Mahaban are equal to its need .The metalled roads from Muttra to Sadabad and Hathras run from west to east across it from the railway bridge at Mattura city. From Raya a metalled road runs north to Mat, and there are second-class unmatelled roads to Baldeo and Sadabad, and a sixth class road direct to Mahaban. Other unmatelled roads run direct from Mahaban to Agra past Barauli and Nera, and from Baldeo to Kanjauli in Sadabad where the Aligarh-Agra metelled road is met. Besides the railway bridge at Muttra which ensures communication at all seasons of the year, the passage of the Jumna is effected by a bridge-of-boats in the hot and cold weather at gokulghat on the direct road to Mahaban, and by ferries at Koila, Basai, Lahroli, Tatrauta and Kanjauli, the ferries in the three last cases being worked from the Muttra side.

The early history of the tahsil is bound up with that of the district and has been sufficiently set fourth in chapter V. In the days of Akber, Mahaban was one of the 33 mahals of sarkar Agra. In addition to its present area, it then contained the present paragna of Mat and a part of paragna Sadabad. Immediately after the cession in 1803 it was attached to the Aligarh district, and was one of the paragna held in farm by Thakur Daya Ram of Hathras until 1808. In 1815, on the constitution of the sub-collectorate of Sadabad, it became a part of it and continued so until, in 1824,Sadabad was raised to the rank of an independent district. In 1832 it became a part of the newly formed Muttra district. Since then its boundaries have been enlarged by the addition of tappas Raya and Sonai, formerly recognized as two district subdivisions; taluqas Ar lashkarpur, Madim and Sonkh, with three villages besides from paragna Mursan; nine villages from Mat, two villagas from Sadabad; and one village from Aligarh.

For administrative purpose the tahsil constitutes a subdivision in the charge of a full-powered officer on the district staff. In police matters the jurisdiction is divided between the police station of Mahaban , Raya and Baldeo; while there are also bodies of town police at Mahaban, Gokul, Baldeo and Raya.

MAJHOI, Tahsil CHHATA

Majhoi is an agricultural village of no great size in 27°52'N. and 77°35'E., on the banks of the Jumna, twenty-eight miles north from Muttra and nine miles east-north-east from Kosi. With the latter place it is connected by an unmetalled road, and there is a ferry over the river which is annually leased by the dis trict board. The population of the place has declined from 657 souls in 1881 to 412 souls in 1901. The Hindu inhabitants num bered 404 persons, the Muhammadans seven and there was one Jain. The predominant Hindu caste is that of Gujars, who were originally the proprietors of the village; but it was confiscated at the Mutiny for rebellion and conferred on Raja Gobind Singh of Hathras. The present owner is Kunwar Mahendra Pratap Singh, the adopted son of Raja Har Narain Singh, the heir of Raja Gobind Singh. The village has a total area of 2,132 acres and pays a revenue demand of Rs. 1,000. Two large baghs in it commemorate the names of Chaina and Serhu, two members of the Gujar community; and there are two old sati tombs here. Majhoi contains a police station, post-office and primary school; the last is maintained from funds contributed by Kunwar Mahendra Pratap Singh and is a large one. Two small fairs are held in honour of Debi on the eighth day of the light half of Chait and the corresponding day of the light half of Kuar.

MANIKPUR, Tahsil SADABAD

This is a small village in the extreme east of the district, distant thirty-three miles from Muttra and nine miles from Sadabad. It lies in 27°27'N. and 78°11'E., and is only of importance because it contains the railway station on the East Indian railway which goes by the name of Jalesar Road. The population of the village in 1901 was 263 persons, to which must be added 38 for the population of the railway station, making 301 in all. Of this number 252 were Hindus, 43 Musalmans and six were Jains. Jats are the numerically strongest Hindu caste. There is a post-office at the station.

MAT, Tahsil MAT

The headquarters town of the tahsil lies in 27°36'N. and 77°48'E., at a distance of twelve miles from Muttra. Though it stands immediately on the high bank of the Jumna, it is separated from the actual bed of the stream by a mile of sand, and the ferry which connects it with Sakariya on the opposite bank is therefore very little used. Four miles lower down the stream is the bridge-of-boats at Brindaban, the road leading to it skirting for some distance the margin of a large morass, called the Moti jhil. A metalled road, eight miles long, connects the place with Raya sta tion on the Cawnpore-Achnera railway; and at the end of this road in Mat is a comfortable inspection house belonging to the district board. Though it gives its name to a tahsil, Mat is a small and unimportant place. It contains a police station, pound, vernacular secondary school and post-office, the tahsil and police station standing within the enclosure of an old mud fort. Though there is no grove of trees to justify the title, Mat is still designated one of the Upabans, and is a station in the Ban jatra, the name being derived from the milk-pails (Mat) here upset by Krishna in his childish sports. At Chhahiri, a little higher up the stream, is the sacred wood of Bhandirban with a small modern temple, rest-house and well in the centre. A large fair, chiefly attended by Bengalis, is held here on the ninth of the dark fortnight of Chait, and is called the Gwal-mandala. The township is divided into two parts, called Raja and Mula and was administered for some years under Act XX of 1856: but the provisions of the Act were subsequently withdrawn. The area of the revenue mauza is 5,149 acres and it is assessed to a demand of Rs. 7,390, the zamindars being Rajputs, Brahmans, Banias and Musalmans. The popula tion which in 1881 numbered 2,550 persons had increased to 3,882 at the last enumeration in 1901. Of the whole number 1,736 were females; Hindus numbered 3,346 and Musalmans 519, there being 17 persons of other religions. The predominant caste among the former was that of Rajputs. Market is held on Thursdays.

MAGORRA, Tahsil MUTTRA.

This town lies in 27°24'N. and, 77°34'E., twelve miles west-south-west of Muttra and two miles north of the metalled road to Bharatpur. The real name of the place is Mangotla, and it was, both under the Mughals and the Jats, the head of a revenue subdivision: it is also reputed to be a place of great antiquity. After being long deserted it was resettled by a family of Tomar Rajputs who divided it into four estates, which they called after their own names—Ghatam, Ram, Ajit and Jajan. These four pattis are now to all intents and purposes distinct estates with the Magorra bazar as their common centre, and there is no such mauza as Magorra. The population of the united township in 1901 was 4,759 persons, 4,445 being Hindus, 312 Muhammadans and two of other religions. Jats are the numerically strongest Hindu caste, and the zamindars are a mixed community of Jats, Banias and Brahmans. The total area of the pattis that form the township of Magorra is 4,359 acres and the revenue demand is Rs. 5,945. A weekly market is held every Thursday, and there is a primary school in the place, besides a railway station on the Nagda-Muttra railway.

MAHABAN, Tahsil MAHABAN

The headquarters town of the tahsil of the same name lies in 25°27'N. and 77°45'E. near the left bank of the Jumna. It is distant some six miles from Muttra on the metalled road to Sadabad, and may be approached either by the railway bridge near Muttra city or by the bridge-of-boats over the river on the direct road, some two miles further south.

Though the country in its neighbourhood is now singularly bare the name Mahaban denotes that there must have been at one time a wood in the loeality; and so late as the year 1634 A.D., the emperor Shahjahan ordered a hunt here and killed four tigers. The connection between Muttra and Mahaban has always been of a most intimate character; for, according to the legend, Krishna was born at the one and cradled at the other. Both places too make their appearance in history together, having been sacked by Mahmud of Ghazni in 1018 A.D. From the effects of this catastrophe it would seem that Mahaban was never able to recover. It is casually mentioned by Minhaj as one of the gathering places for the imperial army sent by the emperor Altamsh against Kalinjar in 1234 A.D. and the emperor Babar incidentally refers to it, as, if it were a place of importance still, in the year 1526 A.D. At the present day, however, though it is the seat of a tahsili, it can scarcely be called more than a considerable village. One or two large private residences have been built since 1870 with fronts of carved stone in the Muttra style; but the temples are all exceedingly mean and of no antiquity. The largest and also the most sacred is that dedicated to Mathura­nath, but it is only built of brick and plaster. There are two other small shrines of some interest: in one the demon Trinavart is represented as a pair of enormous wings overhanging the infant god; the other bears the dedication of Maha Mall Rae "the great champion prince," a title given to Krishna.

A great part of the town is occupied by a high hill, partly natural, partly artificial, where stood the old fort. This is said to have been built by the same Rana Katira of Mewar to whon is ascribed also the fort at Jalesar. According to one tradition he had been driven from his own country by the Musalmans and took refuge with the Raja of Mahaban, by name Digpal his son Kant Kunwar married Digpal's daughter, and apparently succeeded to his father-in-law's dominions. He made a grant of the whole township of Mahaban to his family priests, who were Sanadh Brahmans; their descendants bear the title of chaudhri and still own shares in Mahaban known as thok chaudhriyan. The fort was recovered by the Muhammadans in the reign of Ala-ud-din by Sufi Yahya of Meshed, who intro­duced himself and a party of soldiers inside the walls in litters disguised as Hindu ladies who wished to visit the shrines of Shiam Lala and Rohini. The Rana was killed, and one-third of the town was granted by the sovereign to Sufi Yahya. The place where he was buried is shown at the back of the Chhathi Palna, but is unmarked by any monument. The share granted to him is still owned by his descendants and is known as thok Saiyidat.

The shrine of Shiam Lala still exists as a mean little cell, perched on the highest point of the fortifications on the side which looks towards the Jumna. It is believed to be the spot where Jasoda gave birth to Maya, or Joganidra, substituted by Vasudeva for the infant Krishna. But by far the most interest­ing building is a covered court called Nanda's palace, or more commonly the Assi-Khamba, i.e., the eighty pillars. In its present form it was erected by the Muhammadans in the time of Aurangzeb out of old materials to serve as a mosque, and, as it now stands, it is divided, by five rows of sixteen pillars each, into four aisles or rather into a centre and two narrower side asiles, with one broad outer cloister. These columns were certainly sculptured before the sack of Mahaban in 1018, and it is possible that they are the wreck of several different temples. The Bud­dhist character of the building or buildings which supplied the columns is decided by the discovery of Buddhist remains let into parts of the building. Krishna's reputed cradle, a coarse struc­ture, covered with calico and tinsel, still stands in the pillared hall, while a dark blue image of the sacred child looks out from a canopy against the wall. The churn from which he stole his foster-mother's butter is shown, and consists of a carved stone in which a long bamboo is placed, while a spot in the wall is pointed out as the place where the sportive milk-maids hid Krishna's flute. In addition to the steady stream of devotees from all parts of India, the pillared hall is resorted to by Hindu mothers from the neighbouring districts for their purification on the sixth day after childbirth, whence the building derives its local name of the Chhatthi Palna, or place of the Chhatthi Puja, i.e.,"the sixth day of worship." Mahaban was doubtless the site of some of those Buddhist monasteries which the Chinese pilgrim Fa-Hian distinctly states existed in his time on both sides of the river; and the town is probably the site intended by the Kliso­boras or Clisobora of Arrian and Pliny.

Mahaban has been administered under Act XX of 1856 since the year 1859. It has an annual income of Rs. 1,150 which is raised by house assessment in the usual way, and expended in the maintenance of extra police, a small conservancy staff and in the carrying out of small improvements. The popula­lation has steadily decreased of late years: in 1872 it numbered 6,930, but at the last enumeration in 1901, the number of inhabitants was returned at 5,523, of whom 2,640 were women. Classified according to religion there were 3,711 Hindus, 1,791 Musalmans, and 21 others. The town has a police station, cattle-pound, middle-vernacular school, and a post-office. A weekly market is held on Wednesdays. The Village Sanitation Act (U. P. Act II of 1892) is in the force in town.

MAHABAN Tahsil

Mahaban tahsil which is conterminous with the pargana of the same name lies between the parallels of 27°14' and 27°41' north latitude and 77°41' and 77°57' east longitude. The tahsil lies wholly to the east of the Jumna river which forms its boun­dary on the west and south; tahsil Mat is on the north, tahsil Sadabad on the south-east, and parganas Gorai and Mursan of the Iglas and Hathras tahsils of the Aligarh district are on the north-east. The tahsil is somewhat irregular in shape. It narrows to a point on the extreme north, where it runs wedge-like between parganas Mat and Gorai; and in the extreme south it juts out into two narrow promontories, near Akos and Nera, which are almost encircled by the Jumna. In the centre the pargana widens considerably and opposite the city of Muttra it reaches its maximum breadth of fourteen miles. Its maximum length from Nimgaon to Sehat is thirty-two miles, or nearly two and a half times its greatest breadth. The most striking physical feature that distinguishes the tahsil from other parganas situated in the Doab further east is the fact that it borders the windings of the Jumna river for at least fifty miles. For a distance varying from one to three miles inland from the high banks of the stream the effect of the river on the character of the country is most marked. This belt of country is uneven in surface, broken up either by ravines or obtrusive sand-hills. The ravines do not here run in an unbroken chain along the whole course of the stream but often entirely disappear, giving place to the sand-hills which are a more common feature of the landscape higher up the river; while in those parts where these sandhills are most developed the ravines never extend far inland and are nowhere very deep, rugged or intricate. Thus from Panigaon to Muttra city, where for a distance of six miles the river sweeps in an outward curve from the Mahaban bank, there are no ravines of any consequence, but a series of sandhills instead; while on the opposite side, along the road from Muttra to Brindaban, the ravines are both deep and extensive. After the Muttra railway bridge is passed the curve of the river changes, and ravines begin to appear in Gopalpur. These get wider and deeper as Gokul is approached; but beyond Gokul the river takes a sudden bend outwards, and in that bend the soil is a pure drifting sand. Beyond this bend the curve of the river again turns inwards with the result that ravines are found at Jogipur, Nabi­pur and Nurpur; next comes the loop of Sherpur and Bassi with its heavy sand, followed in turn by the most marked inward curve in the pargana. This extends from Bassi to Nagla Azim, and in it extensive ravines, the worst in the tahsil, are formed. This belt of sand and ravines is for the most part uncultivated, and exercises but little influence on the general rent-rate of the pargana. It is valuable for grazing purposes, as some of the ravines are wooded with scrub jungle, and in the sandy tracts sarpat grass grows in profusion. As soon as the zone influenced by the river is passed the country becomes level and uniform in surface, similar in almost every respect to the tahsil of Sadabad. The prevailing soil is good piliya or light loam. As in Sadabad isolated tracts of bhur or sand occur oven in this inland por­tion, but they are on the whole of comparatively small area. If the conventional soils demarcated at the last settlement be divided among the natural soils that most closely correspond to them, 78 per cent. of the cultivated area in the upland is piliya, 14 per cent. is bhur, 7 per cent. is puth and one per cent. is tarai. Owing to the continuous action of the river the area and conformation of the Jumna valley or khadar land change yearly, as well as the proportion of it under cultivation. The soil is all alluvial and, as a large portion of it depends on the nature of the deposit left by the yearly flood, it varies in quality from year to year. The higher fields under the bangar cliff are generally of firmer soil and of better quality than those which are subject to inundation.

As the total area is thus apt to vary from year to year a better idea of the conformation of the tahsil will be gained from an average taken over a series of years than from the statistics of a single year. Thus for the five years ending in 1907 the total area amounted on an average to 153,697 acres or 240.1 square miles. Of this only 12,199 acres or 7.93 per cent. were recorded as barren waste, including, besides the land unfit for cultivation, that which was covered with water or with sites, roads, buildings and the like. The culturable area out of cultiva­tion amounted to 19,209 acres or 12.49 per cent., well over half or 11,333 acres being returned as old fallow. During the same period the area under the plough averaged 122,288 acres or 79.56 per cent. of the whole, a higher proportion than in any other tahsil except Sadabad. Of this acreage 37,254 acres on the average were irrigated. Cultivation is close and good, and irrigation is extensively practised; but the area twice-cropped within the year averages only 12,101 acres or 9.88 per cent. of the cultivation, a smaller percentage than in any other tahsil except Sadabad. For many years the Mahaban and Sadabad tahsils were remark able for the amount of irrigation carried on from wells; but the continuous fall in the spring level from the famine of 1877-78 onwards and the increasing brackishness of the water in the wells which became alarming after the famine of 1896-97 seriously curtailed the available supply and resulted in a diminu­tion of the area so irrigated. Since the opening of the Mat branch extension of the canal however, at the end of 1903, a marked improvement has taken place; and, of the total area watered during the five years ending in 1907, 17,648 acres have on an average been watered from the canal as against 19,557 served by wells. It is probable that as irrigation from the canal develops wells will be to a large extent displaced by the canal. At the same time the spring level in the wells will probably rise and the quality of the water will be improved. Another effect of canal irrigation will be to check the growth of the weed baisuri, which is prevalent in the tract extending from Raya on the north-west to Bisawar in Sadabad on the south-east. The kharif is the principal harvest and averages some 78,083 acres as against 55,503 acres sown in the rabi. The chief crops grown are juar, cotton and bajra, alone or mixed with arhar, in the autumn, and barley, alone or in combination with gram, and wheat in the spring. Small areas are devoted to maize, guar or khurti, moth, gram and peas.

The excellence of the cultivation in Mahaban is almost entirely due to the presence of the careful and industrious Jat husbandmen. These form about half the whole agricultural population; the other chief cultivating castes being Chamars, Brahmans, Rajputs, Ahirs, Barhais and Gadariyas. In 1907-08 proprietors as such held 16.23 per cent. of the holdings area, occupancy and ex-proprietary tenants 31.08 per cent., and tenants­at-will 51.28 per cent., the small remainder being rent-free. Mahaban contains 201 villages, at present divided into 736 mahals. Of the latter 124, representing 13.02 per cent. of the area of the tahsil, are in the hands of single landholders, 109 or 10.16 per cent. are held in joint zamindari, 209 or 23.62 per cent. in perfect pattidari, and 246 or 45.08 per cent. in imperfect patti­darri tenure; while six or less than one per cent. are recorded as bhaiyachara. The rest of the tahsil, 7.28 per cent. comprised in 42 mahals, is held revenue-free. Jats own 50,600 acres or just one-third of the pargana, and are closely followed by Brahmans with 44,632 acres or 29 per cent. After them come Banias 25,020, and Musalmans, 6,306 acres. The largest proprietor in the tahsil is Bohra Gajadhar Singh of Jagdispur in Mahaban who owns portions of 32 villages assessed to a revenue demand of Rs. 28,690. Ten whole villages and parts of four others are held by Raja Datt Prasad Singh of Mursan who pays revenue to the extent of Rs. 6,389; while Babu Kalyan Singh of Muttra holds portions of eight villages assessed in all to Rs. 3,900. The wealth­iest proprietors of the Bania caste are those residing at Raya. The head of the family is Lala Radha Ballabh, an honorary magistrate. Among the Musalmans the Saiyids of Mahaban take the first place, having claims to an ancient and honourable pedigree.

In 1881 the tahsil had a population of 116,829 souls, and since that time the total has steadily increased. At the folio wing enumeration of 1891 the number had risen to 133,488, while in 1901 there were 136,566 inhabitants, of whom 62,520, were females. The average density is 569 persons to the square mile—a higher figure than in any other tahsil of the district except Sadabad and Muttra, in the latter of which the rate is swollen by the inclusion of a large city population. Classified according to religions there were 126,655 Hindus, 8,973 Musalmans, 582 Christians, 195 Jains, 158 Aryas and three Sikhs. Jats are the most numerous Hindu caste, numbering 32,842 persons, while after them come Brahmans, 23,150. Chamars, 17,915 and Banias, 8,704. Other castes with over two thousand members apiece are Gujars, Bairagis, Lodhas, Koris, Barhais, Nais, Kumhars and Rajputs. The last named are fewer in Mahaban than in any other tahsil of the district, and of the clans specified at the census the best represented were Chauhans and Gahlots. On the other hand converted Rajputs formed the most numerous subdivision of the Muhammadan population, and were followed by Qassabs, Sheikhs and Julahas. The tahsil is mainly agricultural in character and there is no commercial or industrial centre in it, practically the entire population being dependent for its live­lihood on agriculture or the trade in agricultural produce.

There are four towns in the tahsil which are administered under Act XX of 1856. Mahaban is the headquarters of the tahsil establishment; Gokul and Baldeo are important religious centres, and Raya is a township and market town, situated on the Cawnpore-Achnera railway. Besides these there are some large and important villages, such as Wairni, Pachawar, Akos, Daghaita, Barauli, Karab and Sahora, which are agricultural estates containing over two thousand inhabitants. Lists of the markets ,fairs,schools and post-offices will be found in the appendix.

The communications of Mahaban are equal to its need .The metalled roads from Muttra to Sadabad and Hathras run from west to east across it from the railway bridge at Mattura city. From Raya a metalled road runs north to Mat, and there are second-class unmatelled roads to Baldeo and Sadabad, and a sixth class road direct to Mahaban. Other unmatelled roads run direct from Mahaban to Agra past Barauli and Nera, and from Baldeo to Kanjauli in Sadabad where the Aligarh-Agra metelled road is met. Besides the railway bridge at Muttra which ensures communication at all seasons of the year, the passage of the Jumna is effected by a bridge-of-boats in the hot and cold weather at gokulghat on the direct road to Mahaban, and by ferries at Koila, Basai, Lahroli, Tatrauta and Kanjauli, the ferries in the three last cases being worked from the Muttra side.

The early history of the tahsil is bound up with that of the district and has been sufficiently set fourth in chapter V. In the days of Akber, Mahaban was one of the 33 mahals of sarkar Agra. In addition to its present area, it then contained the present paragna of Mat and a part of paragna Sadabad. Immediately after the cession in 1803 it was attached to the Aligarh district, and was one of the paragna held in farm by Thakur Daya Ram of Hathras until 1808. In 1815, on the constitution of the sub-collectorate of Sadabad, it became a part of it and continued so until, in 1824,Sadabad was raised to the rank of an independent district. In 1832 it became a part of the newly formed Muttra district. Since then its boundaries have been enlarged by the addition of tappas Raya and Sonai, formerly recognized as two district subdivisions; taluqas Ar lashkarpur, Madim and Sonkh, with three villages besides from paragna Mursan; nine villages from Mat, two villagas from Sadabad; and one village from Aligarh.

For administrative purpose the tahsil constitutes a subdivision in the charge of a full-powered officer on the district staff. In police matters the jurisdiction is divided between the police station of Mahaban , Raya and Baldeo; while there are also bodies of town police at Mahaban, Gokul, Baldeo and Raya.

MAJHOI, Tahsil CHHATA.

Majhoi is an agricultural village of no great size in 27°52'N. and 77°35'E., on the banks of the Jumna, twenty-eight miles north from Muttra and nine miles east-north-east from Kosi. With the latter place it is connected by an unmetalled road, and there is a ferry over the river which is annually leased by the dis­trict board. The population of the place has declined from 657 souls in 1881 to 412 souls in 1901. The Hindu inhabitants num­bered 404 persons, the Muhammadans seven and there was one Jain. The predominant Hindu caste is that of Gujars, who were originally the proprietors of the village; but it was confiscated at the Mutiny for rebellion and conferred on Raja Gobind Singh of Hathras. The present owner is Kunwar Mahendra Pratap Singh, the adopted son of Raja Har Narain Singh, the heir of Raja Gobind Singh. The village has a total area of 2,132 acres and pays a revenue demand of Rs. 1,000. Two large baghs in it commemorate the names of Chaina and Serhu, two members of the Gujar community; and there are two old sati tombs here. Majhoi contains a police station, post-office and primary school; the last is maintained from funds contributed by Kunwar Mahendra Pratap Singh and is a large one. Two small fairs are held in honour of Debi on the eighth day of the light half of Chait and the corresponding day of the light half of Kuar.

MANIKPUR, Tahsil SADABAD

This is a small village in the extreme east of the district, distant thirty-three miles from Muttra and nine miles from Sadabad. It lies in 27°27'N. and 78°11'E., and is only of importance because it contains the railway station on the East Indian railway which goes by the name of Jalesar Road. The population of the village in 1901 was 263 persons, to which must be added 38 for the population of the railway station, making 301 in all. Of this number 252 were Hindus, 43 Musalmans and six were Jains. Jats are the numerically strongest Hindu caste. There is a post-office at the station.

MAT, Tahsil MAT.

The headquarters town of the tahsil lies in 27°36'N. and 77°48'E., at a distance of twelve miles from Muttra. Though it stands immediately on the high bank of the Jumna, it is separated from the actual bed of the stream by a mile of sand, and the ferry which connects it with Sakariya on the opposite bank is therefore very little used. Four miles lower down the stream is the bridge-of-boats at Brindaban, the road leading to it skirting for some distance the margin of a large morass, called the Moti jhil. A metalled road, eight miles long, connects the place with Raya sta­tion on the Cawnpore-Achnera railway; and at the end of this road in Mat is a comfortable inspection house belonging to the district board. Though it gives its name to a tahsil, Mat is a small and unimportant place. It contains a police station, pound, vernacular secondary school and post-office, the tahsil and police station standing within the enclosure of an old mud fort. Though there is no grove of trees to justify the title, Mat is still designated one of the Upabans, and is a station in the Ban jatra, the name being derived from the milk-pails (Mat) here upset by Krishna in his childish sports. At Chhahiri, a little higher up the stream, is the sacred wood of Bhandirban with a small modern temple, rest-house and well in the centre. A large fair, chiefly attended by Bengalis, is held here on the ninth of the dark fortnight of Chait, and is called the Gwal-mandala. The township is divided into two parts, called Raja and Mula and was administered for some years under Act XX of 1856: but the provisions of the Act were subsequently withdrawn. The area of the revenue mauza is 5,149 acres and it is assessed to a demand of Rs. 7,390, the zamindars being Rajputs, Brahmans, Banias and Musalmans. The popula­tion which in 1881 numbered 2,550 persons had increased to 3,882 at the last enumeration in 1901. Of the whole number 1,736 were females; Hindus numbered 3,346 and Musalmans 519, there being 17 persons of other religions. The predominant caste among the former was that of Rajputs. Market is held on Thursdays.

MAT Tahsil.

The present tahsil of Mat comprises the old tahsil of Noh­jhil and a portion of the villages which originally formed tahsil Mat. It is the north-eastern tahsil of the district and lies between the parallels of 27°35' and 27°58'N. and 77°31' and 77°50' E., being bounded on the north and east by the district of Aligarh, on the south by tahsil Mahaban and on the west by the river Jumna. In one place, however, namely the village of Jahangirpur, the river does not form the boundary of the tahsil, for, when a sudden change of the stream cut the alluvial land of that village in half, the portion that became attached to the Muttra tahsil was awarded to Mat. Its extreme length from Pipraoli in the south to Chaukara on the north is 28 miles, and the average breadth is about eight miles. The tahsil is thus a long narrow subdivision with a large river frontage. Except from Bhadaura southwards, however, the ravines that flank the river are nowhere deep or rugged, and the soil, which is soft and yield­ing, presents but little impediment to the force of the stream, Consequently several depressions have been formed in the surface, which must have at one time been beds of the river. These depressions have already been described in Chapter I and need not here be recapitulated. The only stream in the tahsil besides the Jumna is a tiny rivulet known as the Pathwaha: This takes its rise in the Bulandshahr district and has a stream only in the rainy season; but before it joins the Jumna below Barauth it runs through a considerable valley, the sides of which are marked by a system of raviny land and suggest either that the stream was once of greater dimensions than it is now or was affected by a back-wash from the Jumna. As a result of the vagaries of the river in past times, light and sandy soil prevails in Mat. In the north of the tahsil, especially west of the Pathwaha, the lines of sand rise twenty or thirty feet above the general level of the country and form one of its chief features. One system of sand-hills starts from the edge of the Nohjhil depression near Mani­garhi and passes into the Aligarh district; while another leaves the same depression near Nurpur and runs north to Awa Khera and thence north-east to Mithauli. There is a net-work of sand-hills near the depression which runs from Nohjhil to Barauth, and lines of similar soil stretch from Noh to Firozpur, along the right bank of the Pathwaha, and along the edge of the cliff in Baghara and Barauth and in places down the whole length of the tahsil. Another system commences in Nasithi on the south, passes north to Khayamal and is connected with the depression near Mat; while there is a distinct series at Hasanpur and Naoli. The prevailing soil throughout is a light sandy loam, in the composi­tion of which sand predominates over clay; but in almost all the villages there are larger or smaller veins of a richer, firmer soil, which equals dumat in its productiveness. In some villages in the south of the tahsil this richer soil is nearly as frequently found as the poorer; but in the north this is rarely the case, and the firm loam in these villages takes the place of tarai land in the loam villages, except that from the more porous nature of the soil the surface water drains off easily and the autumn crops are rarely injured. In a very few places does the river flow directly under the upland cliff; and the khadar land is everywhere extensive. This land is purely alluvial and varies from a sticky clay to a rich dumat, with here and there some tracts of sand. Generally the soils of the pargana do not differ from those found elsewhere and are capable of classification under the same heads as in the other tahsils. But there is a large number of local names in use particularly with reference to the soils found in the old Noh lagoon. Thus the hard red loam near the ravines is called piraunda; while the old sand banks of the river are known as magro. The soils found in the old river beds them-selves are called by a variety of names such as tari, dabua, jhawar, kunda, jhada, kil and khapra; while the general soil of the jhil is chiknot or slippery earth, a pure clay, in some villages also called bhabra. In the upland or bangar area of the tahsil, however, some 78 per cent. of the cultivated area at last settle­ment was classed as piliya or light loam, 10 per cent. as bhur, 8 per cent. as puth, and 3 per cent. as tarai, the remainder being rakar in the ravines.

Owing to changes in the course of the Jumna the area of the tahsil changes somewhat from year to year. For the five years ending in 1907 the total area on an average was returned at 142,506 acres or 223 square miles. Of this, 10,240 acres or 7.18 per cent. were recorded as barren, this head including, besides the land unfit for cultivation, that which is covered with water or is occupied by roads, sites, buildings and the like. The culturable area out of cultivation amounted to 26,344 acres or 18.48 per cent. of the tahsil, old fallow accounting for 18,346 acres or 12.87 per cent. For the same period the area under the plough averaged 105,922 acres or 74.32 per cent. of the total, this proportion being lower than that of any tahsil except Muttra. Just one-third of this or 35,282 acres was irrigated, wells accounting for 19,252 and canals for 15,983 acres. Before the opening of the Mat branch extension at the end of 1903, irriga­tion from canals was confined to a few villages in the extreme north; but since 1904, there has been a great development of the area watered from canals and with it a diminution in that watered from wells. The area twice cropped within the year averages 13,772 acres or 13 per cent. of the cultivation, a higher proportion than that of any other tahsil in the district. The kharif is the principal harvest, averaging 61,645 acres as against 57,412 acres sown in the rabi. The chief crops grown in the autumn. are juar, cotton and bajra, alone or intermixed with arhar; but guar or khurti, maize and moth occupy a consi­derable acreage. In the spring over half the area sown is covered with barley or barley in combination with gram, and about three-fifths of the remainder is occupied by wheat.

The system of cultivation in the pargana is on the whole good. The chief cultivating castes are Jats, Brahmans, Chamars, Rajputs and Banias; while Musalmans, Barhais, Gadariyas and Mallahs are also found. In 1907-08 proprietors as such tilled 30.48 per cent. of the holdings area, occupancy and ex-proprie­tary tenants 20.37 per cent., and tenants-at-will 48.18 per cent., the small remainder being rent-free. Mat contains 157 villages, at present divided into 411 mahals. Of the latter, 73, represent­ing 13.56 per cent. of the whole tahsil, are in the hands of single landholders; 82 or 11.61 per cent. are owned in joint zamin­dari tenure; while 83 or 13.56 per cent. are held in perfect and 163 or 54.42 per cent. in imperfect pattidari. There are also four estates classed as bhaiyachara which account for 5.38 per cent. of the whole area, and the remaining six or a little over one per cent. are revenue-free. Jats are the largest pro­prietors with 46,726 acres or nearly 33 per cent., and after them come Brahmans, 37.017 acres; Banias, 19,344 acres; and Rajputs, 17,173 acres. Other landholding castes are Musalmans, Kayasths, Marwari Brahmans and Khattris. The largest land-lord in the tahsil is the temple of Dwarka Dhis at Muttra, which owns 18 whole villages and parts of 13 others, assessed to a revenue of Rs. 15,988, and there is no other important proprie­tor in the tahsil Two villages and one patti belong to the temple of Rangji at Brindaban; three villages and portions of three others to Raja Datt Prasad Singh of Mursan; and one village and two pattis to Babu Kalyan Singh of Muttra.

In 1881 Mat had a population of 95,446 persons. This fell to 89,451 in 1891, but rose to 97,370 at the last enumeration in 1901, 45,373 of the whole number being females. The average density is 437 persons to the square mile—a figure which is considerably below the district average. Classified according to religions there were 89,279 Hindus, 7,164 Musalmans, 591 Aryas, 330 Christians and six Jains. Jats are the. most numer­ous Hindu caste, numbering 20,140 persons, while after them come Chamars, 18,628; Brahmans, 13,965; Banias, 5,499; and Rajputs, 4,415. Other castes with over two thousand members apiece are Gadariyas and Barhais. The best represented of the Rajput clans are Jadons, Bachhals, Chauhans and Janwars. The chief Muhammadan subdivisions are converted Rajputs, Faqirs, Pathans, Sheikhs, Telis, Bhangis and Bhistis. The tahsil is almost wholly agricultural in character, practically the entire population being dependent for its livelihood on agriculture or the trade in agricultural produce. There are no towns in the tahsil, and but few places of any size or importance. Nohjhil is an old established place which was once the headquarters of a tahsil; Bajana is an old market town, and Surir possesses a police station; but none of these nor Mat itself can rank as more than large villages. There are some big agricultural estates, containing over 2,000 inhabitants, such as Arua and Hasanpur. Lists of the markets, fairs, schools and post-offices of the tahsil will be found in the appendix.

Owing to its extremely narrow width in proportion to length the tahsil is amply served by the road which running northwards from Mat splits into two branches at Akbarpur, one leading to Khair in Aligarh and the other to Nohjhil. Mat is connected with Brindaban by an unmetalled road and with Raya by a metalled road, eight miles long. Only four miles of it lie in Mat, however, and this is the only metalled road at present in the tahsil. The only other roads are those from Nohjhil to Shergarh with its continuation to Bajana and from Mat to Beswan. The passage of the Jumna is effected by means of several ferries, of which a list is given in the appendix; the most important are those at Shergarh and Brindaban.

In the days of Akbar the present tahsil of Mat was divided between the pargana of Nohjhil in the sarkar of Kol and the pargana of Mahaban in the sarkar of Agra. Immediately before the cession of the district in 1803, pargana Nohjhil formed part of the jagir of General Perron while Mat was hold by General Du Boigne. The former was first attached, as a tem­porary measure, to the Fatehgarh, and the latter to the Etawah, district; but as soon as the Aligarh district was constituted in 1804 both were incorporated in it. The following year they were farmed to Ranmast Khan who, in 1807, was outlawed and expelled by General Dickens for an attack on the village of Musmina. In 1824 both parganas were transferred to the Sada­bad and in 1832 to the Muttra district. There was some dis­affection in the parganas during the Mutiny, the rebels being led by one Umrao Bahadur, who was subsequently killed at Dehli. His estates, comprising some eighteen villages in all, were conferred on Seth Lakhmi Chand free of revenue for life. In 1861 the parganas of Nohjhil and Mat were amalgamated into one tahsil under the name of Mat, and no change has taken place in their composition since that year.

For administrative purposes the tahsil constitutes a subdivi­sion in the charge of a full-powered officer on the district staff. In police matters the jurisdiction is divided between the stations of Mat, Surir, Nohjhil and Raya.

MIRHAOLI, Tahsil SADABAD.

Mirhavali, Mirhaoli or Mindhaoli as it is indifferently called, lies eleven miles south-west of Sadabad in 27°19'N. and 77°58'E. It is a large agricultural estate with a total area of 4,120 acres and is assessed to a demand of Rs. 7,000, the zamindars also the predominant castes, being Jats and Brah­mans. The village was founded by one Kuki Rawat, a Jat, and has an aided school. In 1901 the population numbered 2,298 souls, of whom 2,228 were Hindus and 70 were Muham­madans.

MUTTRA City.

The celebrated city of Muttra, which gives its name to the district, is situated in 27°31' north latitude and 77°41' east longitude. It lies almost in the centre of the district, on the banks of the Jumna River, on the provincial road from Agra to Dehli, the distance to the former being 32 miles and to the latter place 89 miles. It has a railway station on the Agra-Dehli Chord section of the Great Indian Peninsula railway, which is 868 miles from Bombay via Itarsi; and on the Cawnpore-Achnera metre-gauge railway, which connects with the East Indian railway at Hathras junction, the distance to Calcutta being by this route 886 miles. Besides this, the city has recently been connected with Nagda junction on the Bombay, Baroda and Central India railway, by way of Kotah and Karauli, by a standard-gauge railway; and there is a metre-gauge branch from Muttra cantonment station on the Cawnpore-Achnera railway to Brindaban, which has a subsidiary station on the north of the town known as Muttra city. From the city, besides the Agra-Dehli road, roads radiate in all directions, those to Dig and Bharatpur in Bharatpur, to Hathras, to Brindaban, and to Gokul, Mahaban and Sadabad, being metalled; and that to Sonkh being unmetalled. In addition to being an important city, the place is also a cantonment for troops, a British cavalry regiment having been stationed here for many years. Muttra or Mathura has been an inhabited city from at least 600 years before Christ. The modern city, as seen to-day, is probably the third city which has occupied the site; and it has yielded many remains to the archaeologists, which have supplied impor­tant links in the history of northern India. As the history of the city depends largely on the interpretation of these remains, it is necessary at the outset to give an outline of the course of archaeological exploration at Muttra.

ARCHAEOLOGICAL DISCOVERIES AT MUTTRA

The first recorded discovery of sculpture at Muttra is that of the so-called Silenus obtained by Colonel Stacy in 1836 and now preserved in the Calcutta museum. In 1853 regular excavations were started.

By General Cunningham on the Katra, an elevated mound outside the city on the Dehli road, now surmounted by the red sandstone mosque built by Aurangzeb to take the place of the famous temple of Kesava Deva or Keso Rai. The excavations were continued in 1862 and numerous sculptural remains came to light, the most important among them being an inscribed Buddha image, three and a half feet high, now in the Lucknow museum. From an inscription it appears that this image was presented to the Yasa vihara or "Convent of Glory," in the Gupta year 230 or 550 A.D.; and we may conclude that the Katra site was once occupied by a Buddhist monastery of that name. In 1860, when the foundations were laid for a collector's court-house on the Jamalpur mound, one and a quarter miles south-east of the Katra, this locality proved to be another important Buddhist site. The site selected for this building was an extensive mound on the Agra road at the entrance to the civil station. It had always been regarded as merely the remains of a series of brick-kilns and had been further protected against exploration by the fact that it was crowned by a small mosque. This was for military purposes blown down during the Mutiny; and afterwards, when the rubbish had been cleared away and excavation for the foundations commenced, it was found to have been erected upon the ruins of a destroyed temple. Here thirty bases of pillars came to light, half of which were inscribed with dedicatory inscriptions. These bases pre­sumably belonged to a colonnade enclosing the inner courtyard of a Buddhist monastery, which, according to the inscriptions, was built in the year 47 of Kanishka's reign and during the reign of his son Huvishka. That this monastery still existed in the fifth century may be inferred from an inscription dated in the Gupta year 135 or 455 A.D. and from an inscribed standing Buddha image, both found on the same site and deposited in the Muttra museum. These were discovered when the mound was levelled by Mr. Hardinge. The same officer trenched the Kankali Tila, a mound a quarter of a mile south of the Katra, in which some sculptures, had been found by men digging for bricks. In 1869 Muttra was visited by Bhagwan Lal Indraji, who on this occasion made two important discoveries. The first was that of a life-size female statue, which he excavated at the Saptarshi Tila on the right bank of the river to the south of the city; and the second was the famous lion capital with its eighteen Kharoshtri inscriptions which throw so much light on the history of the northern Satraps who ruled in Muttra before the time of the Kushans. This was found in the same neigh­bourhood. In November 1871 General Cunningham resumed the excavation of the Kankali Tila which proved more prolific in sculptural remains than any of the Muttra sites. This is an extensive mound on the side of the Agra-Dehli road, between the Bharatpur and Dig gates of the city. General Cunningham here obtained many Jain images, partly inscribed, as well as portions of railings. The twelve inscriptions discovered by him range in date from the year 5 of Kanishka's reign to the year 98 in that of Vasudeva. To these may be added a large figure of an elephant, standing on the capital of a pillar, with an inscription dated in the year 39 of Huvishka's reign. Between the Katra and Kankali Tila there rises a high mound, named after the temple of Bhuteswar, at the back of which it is situated. On the top of this mound there stood once a large railing pillar carved with the figure of a female parasol-bearer over which is a curious bas-relief apparently referring to some Jataka. About the same time General Cunningham explored some of the Chaubara mounds. These are a group of some twelve or fourteen circular mounds situated about half a mile south-west of the Katra, at the tri-junction pillar of the villages of Muttra, Bakipur and Giridharpur. They are strewn with fragments of brick and stone and would all seem to have been stupas. In one of these mounds a golden relic casket, containing a tooth, was discovered in 1868; and later another yielded a second relic casket of steatite and some sculptures. Subsequent exploration of these mounds by Mr. Growse led to the discovery of numerous other sculptural remains, which were placed in the Muttra museum; and the same officer made numerous other discoveries, including the so-called Bacchanalian group which was obtained in 1873-4 outside the village of Pali Khera. In 1881-82 when General Cunningham re-visited Muttra in order to inspect the newly established museum, he discovered another sculpture no less re­markable for the classical influence it betrays. Its subject is Herakles Stranglin the Nemean lion. The last archaeological explorations at Muttra were carried out by Dr. Fuhrer between the years 1887 and 1896. His chief work was the excavation of the Kankali Tila in the three seasons of 1888 to 1891; but he explored also the Katra site. No account of his explorations is available, but a series of 108 plates were subsequently published under Dr. Fuhrer's supervision, illustrating the chief finds. When the provincial museum at Lucknow was opened in 1884 most of the sculptures that had gone to Allahabad were removed there, but some were left behind and these were returned and added to the local collection in the Muttra museum. The sculptures that had remained at Agra and the pieces that were excavated by Dr. Führer were all sent to Lucknow, which contains themost extensive collection of Muttra sculptures. The Calcutta museum contains 28 Muttra pieces, including the Silenus and Herakles strangling the Nemean Lion. The sculptures which were collected by Mr. Growse are nearly all preserved in the local Museum; and some others which had found their way to the Lahore museum and the Municipal museum at Delhi have been returned to Muttra.</ref>

THE BUDDHIST CITY OF MUTTRA

This resume of the course of archaeological discovery at Muttra is sufficient to show that the explorations have been very fertile; but they were carried out on very unsystematic lines; and, in the absence of plans, no information is forthcoming regarding the buildings to which the sculptures discovered belonged. The Chinese traveller, Hiuen Tsang, described the city and its more important buildings in 642 A.D.; and attempts have been made by both Cunningham and Growse to identify some of the Muttra sites with localities mentioned by Hinen Tsang. These results, however, have failed. Both authorities assumed that the Katra marks the centre of the ancient city, whereas the site of ancient Muttra is clearly indicated by an extensive elevation of the soil to the south-west of the town. Hence their identifications, based on a wrong location of the city, are inadmissible, and both the Upagupta monastery and the monkey tank near it, mentioned by Hiuen Tsang, have yet to be discovered. All that can be deduced from past explorations is the following. The Katra must have been the site of a Buddhist monastery named the Yasavihara which was still extant in the middle of the sixth century. It would seem that in the immediate vicinity there existed a stupa to which the Bhuteswar railing pillars belonged. Dr. Fuhrer mentions indeed in one of his reports that in digging at the back of Aurangzeb's mosque, he struck the procession path of a stupa bearing a dedicatory in scription. The Kankali Tila contained a Jain stupa, named "Voda thupa," and apparently of considerable age, for in Huvishka's reign its origin was ascribed to the gods. Dr. Fuhrer, moreover, speaks of two Jain temples found in his excavation of this mound. Evidently there flourished a Jain establishment here down to the Muhammadan period. But some sculptures said to have been found in or near the Kankali Tila are Buddhist. The Chaubara mounds represent a group of Buddhist stupas as is proved by the discovery of two relic caskets and railing pillars. One of these pillars, preserved in the Muttra museum, bears an undated inscription in Brahmi of the early Kushan type. The three pedestals found by Growse near one of the Chaubara mounds may have belonged to a temple; On the Jamalpur site there once stood a Buddhist monastery founded by Hnvishka in the year 47 of Kanishka's era and, no doubt, connected with a stupa as may be inferred from the discovery of railing pillars on this site. This Buddhist establishment also must have been still in a flourishing con dition in the middle of the fifth century as appears from the two inscribed Buddha images, one dated in the Gupta year 135 and the other undated, which were found here. The Arjunpura mound to the north-west of the Sitala Ghati seems to contain the remains of a monument or stupa of the Maurya period. Jain sculptures have been found on the site of the old fort, Sitala Ghati and in Rani-ki-mandi. Buddhist buildings are still to be discovered in the Dhruva and Saptarshi mounds

THE HINDU CITY OF MUTTRA KATRA

On the decline of Buddhism, Muttra acquired that character for sanctity which it still retains as the reputed birth-place of Krishna. The so-called Katra, of which frequent mention has been made in the preceding paragraph, is an oblong enclosure, 804 -feet in length by 653 feet in breadth.

AURANGZEB’S MOSQUEAND THE TEMPLE OF KESAVA DEVA

In its centre is a raised terrace, 172 feet long and 86 feet broad, upon which stands the mosque of Aurangzeb, occupying its entire length but only 60 feet of its breadth. About five feet lower is another terrace, measuring 286 feet by 268. The mosque is not in itself architecturally interesting; but there may still be observed, let into the Muhammadan pavement, some votive tables with Nagri inscriptions, dated sambat 1713 and 1720, corresponding to 1656 and 1663 A.D. This was the site of the famous temple of Kesava Deva destroyed in 1669 by Aurangzeb, who built the mosque over it. The plinth of the temple wall may be traced to this day at the back of the mosque and at right angles to it for a distance of 163 feet; but not a vestige of the superstructure has been allowed to remain. The temple was visited both by Bernier and Tavernier, the latter of whom has left us a description of it. "The temple is of such a vast size that, though in a hollow, one can see it five or six kos off, the building being very lofty and very magnificent. The stone used in it is of a reddish tint, brought from a large quarry near Agra……………………. It is set on a large octagonal platform, which is all faced with cut stone, and has round about it two bands of many kinds of animals, but particularly monkeys, in relief…………...The temple, however, only occupies half the platform, the other half making a grand square in front. Like other temples it is in the form of a cross, and has a great dome in the middle with two rather smaller at the end. Outside, the building is covered from top to bottom with figures of animals, such as rams, monkeys, and elephants, carved in stone; and all round there are nothing but niches occupied by different monsters ……………..

………The Pagoda has only one entrance, which is very lofty, with many columns and images of men and beasts on either side. The choir is enclosed by a screen composed of stone pillars, five or six inches in diameter……………… Out side, the screen is entirely closed." Tavernier was permitted to obtain a view of the idol from beyond the screen. He saw "as it were, a square altar, covered with old gold and silver brocade, and on it the great idol………….The head only is visible and is of very black marble, with what seemed to be two rubies for eyes. The whole body from the neck to the feet was covered with an embroidered robe of red velvet and no arms could be seen." At the time of its demolition the temple had been in existence only some fifty years, but it is certain that an earlier shrine or series of shrines, on the same site and under the same dedication, had been famous for centuries. In anticipation of Aurangzeb's raid the ancient image of Kesava Deva was removed by Rana Raj Singh of Mewar. The wheels of the chariot in which it was being conveyed away sank in the deep sand near the obscure village of Siarh on the Banas river, 22 miles north-east of Udaipur. As the chariot refused to be extricated, the image was set up on the spot and a temple built for it, round which has grown up the modern village of Nathdwara. The latter takes its name from the temple which is called Nath Ji. The image is the most highly venerated of all the images of Krishna. Tavernier says that that the temple of Kesava Deva was not held in such high veneration by the Hindus in his day as formerly, because the Jumna had changed its course and instead of flowing close to the temple, flowed half a league away; but it is extremely doubtful whether the Jumna changed its course in historical times, although traces of fluvial action dating from remote antiquity are unmistakeable.

MORDEN TEMPLE OF KESAVA DEVA

At the back of the Katra is the modern temple of Kesava Deva, a cloistered quadrangle of no particular architectural merit and, except on special occasions, little frequented in consequence of its distance from the main town.

POTARA KUND'

Close by is a large quadrangular tank of solid masonry, called the Potara kund, in which, as the name denotes, Krishna's baby-linen was washed. There is little or no architectural decoration, but the great size and massiveness of the work render it imposing. The soil, however, is very porous and the water in the tank, at all seasons except in the rains, almost dries up. A small cell on the margin of the tank, called indifferently Kara-garh, "the prison house," or Janum-bhumi, "the birth-place,” marks the place where Vasudeva and Devaki were kept in confinement and where their son Krishna was born. At the back of the Potara-kund and within the circuit of the Dhul-kot, or old ramparts of the city, is a very large mound (where a railway engineer had a house before the Mutiny) which would seem to be the site of some large Buddhist establishment.

BALBHADR KUND

South of the Katra and between it and the Kankali Tila, close to the Dehli road, is the tank known as the Balbhadr-kund. This is an old tank but is now in a ruinous condition; a fair is held near it on the full moon of Sawan, the feast of the Saluno. It was partially cleaned out and repaired as a relief work during the famine of 1877-78.

TEMPLE OF BHUTESWAR MAHADEVA

Overlooking this tank is the temple of Bhuteswar Mahadeva, which in its present form is a quadrangle of ordinary character with pyramidal tower and cloister built by the Marathas towards the end of the eighteenth century. In the earlier days of Brah manism, before the development of the Krishna cult, Bhuteswar was probably the special local divinity; and the site has probably been occupied by successive religious buildings from remote antiquity; possibly it was at one time the centre of the town of Muttra. In an adjoining orchard, called the Qazi's Bagh, is a small modern mosque, and in connection with it a curious square building of red sandstone. It now encloses a Muhammadan tomb and is a good specimen of the pure Hindu style of archi tecture, though the original purpose for which it was built is obscure. Close at the back of the Balbhadr-kund and the Katra is a range of hills of considerable elevation, commonly called Dhul-kot, literally "dust heaps," the name given to the accumulation of refuse that collects outside a city.

THE OLD CITY RAMPARTS

Some of these, however, are clearly of natural formation and perhaps indicate an old course of the Jumna or its tributaries. Others are the walls of the old city, which in places are still of great height. They can be traced in a continuous line from the Rangeswar Mahadeo on the Kans-ka-Tila, outside the Holi gate of new Muttra, across the Agra road to the temple of Bhuteswar and thence round by an orchard called the Uthaigiri-ka-bagh, where the highest point is crowned by a small Bairagi's cell, at the back of the Kesavadeva temple and between it and the Seth's Chaurasi temple to the shrine of Garteswar, " the God of the Moat," and so on to the Maha vidya hill and the temple of Gokarneswar near the Sravasti Sangam.

THE SRAVASTI SANGAM

The latter literally means the "Sravasti confluence," and implies the junction of two streams, the one flowing past the Katra and the other running in from the opposite direction, which find their way to the Jumna. The bed of the former is now partly occupied by the Dehli road, which, after leaving the great entrance to the Katra, passes the Kubja well, com memorating the miracle which Krishna wrought in straightening the hump-backed maiden who met him there. Near the turn to the right which leads into the city by the Brindaban gate is a Muhammadan burial-ground containing a large stone chhatri, similar to the one near the Idgah at Mahaban, which commemo rates Ali Khan, the local governor of that town. It is probably of the reign of Akbar, and is said to cover the ashes of a certain Khwaja.

OTHER OLD TEMPLES

A short distance further on is the Sravasti Sangam which is crossed by a handsome bridge, built by Seth Lakhmi Chand in 1849. To the right of it is a temple of Mahadeva which forms a very conspicuous object. It was built in the year 1850 by Ajodhya Prasad of Lucknow. Close by is a walled garden with another temple to the same divinity and a much frequented stone ghat on the river bank, all constructed at the cost of a money-lender, named Sri Gopal. The adjoining hill is called Kailas, and on its slope is the shrine of Gokarneswar who is represented as a giant seated figure, with enormous eyes and long hair and beard and moustaches. The figure is certainly of great antiquity and may have been originally intended to represent some Indo-Scythian king. In the same set of build ings is the shrine of Gautama Rishi. Opposite the Kailas hill, across the read, is an open plain, where the sports of the Ram Lila are celebrated on the festival of the Dasahra. Close by is a tank called the Sarasvati-kund, measuring 125 feet square. Owing to some fault in the construction it is almost always dry; though from an inscription on a tablet over the adjoining temple it was apparently restored in 1846.

TEMPLE OF MAHAVIDYA DEVI

At no great distance is the temple of Mahavidya Devi. The original image with that dedication is said to have been set up by the Pandavas; the present shrine, a sikhara of ordinary character in a small quadrangle, was built by the Peshwa towards the end of the eighteenth century. The hill on which it stands is ascended by a flight of masonry steps between 30 and 40 in number. In the courtyard which occupies the entire plateau, is a karil tree said to be of enormous age, under which are to be seen, among other fragments, a Buddhist pillar carved with the figure of Maya Devi under the sal tree, and a square stone box with a seated Buddha on each of its four sides. Two fairs are held here on the eighth of the light fortnight of Chait and Kuar. This is probably one of the oldest Buddhist sites.

THE JAI SINGHPURA

The Jai Singhpura khera, which over-looks the Sravasti Sangam and is separated by a deep ravine from the Mahavidya hill, is of great extent and has been tunnelled all over in search of bricks. Several Buddhist sculptures have been found at different times and were collected at a shrine of Chamund Devi, which is immediately under the khera at the back, till the best of them were removed by Mr. Growse to the Muttra museum. The khera is the site of Raja Sawai Jai Singh's old palace and below is an old ghat, called the Ganesh or Senapati ghat, built by one of Sindhia's generals at the end of the eight­eenth century.

THE SIVA TAL

The Siva Tal lies not far from the Kankali Tila: it is a spacious quadrangular basin of great depth and always well supplied with water. It is enclosed in a high boundary wall with corner kiosks and a small arched doorway in the centre of three of its sides. On the fourth side is the gau-ghat or slope for watering cattle with two memorial inscriptions facing each other, the one in Sanskrit and the other in Persian From these it appears that the tank was constructed by order of Raja Patni Mal of Benares in 1807 A.D. The design and execution are both of singular excellence; and the place is visited by a large number of bathers from the neighbourhood every morning, besides being the scene of an annual fair held on the eleventh of the dark fortnight of the month of Bhadon. The builder of this tank is further commemorated in Muttra by a large temple in the Manoharpur muhalla, bearing the title of Dirgha Vishnu, and another small shrine near the Holi gate of the city, which he rebuilt in honour of Vira-bhadr. His dwelling house is still standing on the Nakarchi Tila. His great ambi­tion was to rebuild the ancient temple of Kesava Deva, and with this view he had gradually acquired a considerable part of the site. But as some of the Muhammadans, who had occupied the ground for nearly two centuries, refused to be bought out and the law upheld them in their refusal, he was at last, and after great expense had been incurred, reluctantly obliged to abandon the idea.

KANS KA TILA

The Kans-ka-Tila hill which lies first outside the Holi gate of the modern city is supposed to be the hill from the summit of which the tyrant Kans was tumbled down by Krishna. It appears to be primarily of natural formation and hence to have been selected as the river boundary of the old wall. General Cunningham suggested that it might have been the site of the one of the seven great stupas mentioned by the Chinese pilgrims; but the old Buddhist city of Muttra probably lay to the north of the present city beyond the Katra; and the Kans ka-Tila has yielded no archaeological remains which associate it with Buddhist times.

THE MODERN CITY

The modern city stretches for about a mile and a half along the right bank of the Jumna, and from the opposite side has a very striking and picturesque appearance. From the water's edge rises a continuous line of stone ghats,, thronged in the early morning by crowds of bathers. Fine stone houses and temples line the narrow road, which passes along the ghats, and above these are seen, tier upon tier, the flat-roofed houses of the town on ground rising up from the river bank.

THE OLD FORT

The most prominent object that strikes the eye is the old Fort, or rather its massive substructure, for that is all that remains; this is called by the people Kans-ka-Qila. Whatever its legendary antiquity, it was rebuilt in historical times by Raja Man Singh of Jaipur, and at a later period was the occasional residence of Man Singh's more famous successor, the great astronomer, Sawai Jai Singh. He was entrusted by Muhammad Shah with the reformation of the calendar, and in order to attain accuracy he constructed five observatories. One of these was on the top of the Muttra fort, but it has now wholly disappeared. Shortly before the Mutiny the existing buildings were sold to the Government contractor, Joti Prasad, who destroyed them for the sake of the materials. The old hall of audience, which is outside the actual fort, is a handsome and substantial building with ranges of red sand-stone pillars; this has been converted into a school. The top of the fort commands an extensive view of the city.

THE VISRANT AND OTHER GHATS

About the centre of the river front is the most sacred of all the ghats: it marks the spot where Krishna sat down to take “rest" after he had slain the tyrant Kansa and hence is called the Visrant ghat. The small open court has a series of marble arches facing the water, which distinguishes it from all the other landing places. The river here swarms with turtles of enor­mous size, which are considered in a way sacred and generally receive a handful or two of grain from every visitor. On either side of this sacred spot, a number of minor ghats stretch up and down the river, those to the north being called uttar kot and those to the south dakhin kot. They are invariably represented as twenty-four in all, twelve in either set; but there is consider-able disagreement as to the particular names. The most autho­ritative list gives, on the north, Ganeshghat; Manasaghat; Dasa­svamedhaghat; Chakratirthaghat; Krishna-Gangaghat; Som­tirthaghat, more commonly called Vasudevaghat or Sheikhghat; Brahmalokghat; Ghantabharanghat; Dhara-patanghat; Sanga­mantirthaghat, otherwise called Vaikunthghat; Nava-tirtha­ghat; and Asikundaghat. To the south are Arimuktaghat; Visrantighat; Pragghat; Kankhalghat; Tindukghat; Surya­ghat; Chintamanighat; Dhruvaghat; Rishighat; Mokshaghat; Koti ghat; and Buddhghat. Most of these ghats refer in their names to well-known legends and are of no special historical or architectural interest. Two other ghats occupy far more conspicuous sites than any of the above. The first bears the name of Samighat, so called because it faces (samhne) the main street of the city; and the other is the Bengalighat, which lies close to the railway bridge and is so-called because it was built by the Gosain of the temple of Gobind Deva at Brindaban, the head of the Bengali Vaishnavas. A little below the Samighat is a small mosque and group of tombs commemorating a Mu­hammadan saint, Makhdum Shah Wilayat of Herat. They date apparently from the sixteenth century, and the architecture is essentially of Hindu design. Of other buildings near the ghats only two deserve mention. One of these is the temple of Mahadeva at the Gangs Krishnaghat, which has some very rich and delicate reticulated stone tracery; and the other is the small temple built on the Dhruva tila, or hill at the back of the Dhruvaghat: it was erected in sambat 1894 (1837 A.D.) in place of an older shrine, of which the ruins remain close by, dedicated to Dhruva Ji. This temple belongs to the Vaishnavas of the Nimbarak Sampradaya, who own the temple of Rasak Bihari at Brindaban.

THE SATI BURJ

Before leaving the river side, one other building claims notice: this is the Sati Burj. It is a slender quadrangular tower of red sandstone commemorating the self-sacrifice of some faithful wife. According to the best authenticated tradition, she was the queen of Raja Bihar Mal of Jaipur and the mother of Raja Bhagwan Pas, by whom the monument was erected in the year 1570 A.D. It has, as it now stands, a total height of 55 feet and is in four storeys; the exterior is ornamented with rude bas-reliefs of elephants and other devices, but it is in a ruinous condition. The tower was originally of much greater height; but all the upper part was destroyed, it is said, by Aurangzeb. The ugly plaster dome which now surmounts the building was apparently added about the beginning of the present century.

THE JAMA MASJID

On rising ground in the very heart of the city stands the Jama Masjid, erected in the year 1661 A.D. by Abd-un-Nabi Khan, the local governor. An inscription in it seems very clearly to indicate that it was erected on the ruins of a Hindu temple. The founder fought on the side of Dara Shikoh at the battle of Samogarh in 1658. About a week after the defeat he joined Aurangzeb and was immediately appointed Faujdar of Etawah. In the following year he was transferred to Sir-hind and a few months later to Muttra. Here he remained until May 1668, when he met his death at Sahora, a village in Mahaban, while engaged in quelling a popular disturbance. The mosque has four lofty minarets, and both these and other parts of the building were originally veneered with bright coloured plaster mosaics, of which a few panels still remain. It was greatly injured by an earthquake which took place in 1803;*(Asiatic Annual Register,1804, p.57) the gateway was cracked from top to bottom, the upper part of one of the minarets was thrown down, and one of the corner kiosks was destroyed, but the dome was uninjured. It was re-paired in 1875 by means of contributions collected by the Sadabad family of Musalmans.

THE CITY

The mosque is the largest and most conspicuous edifice in what is otherwise a purely Hindu city. But all the buildings by which it is now surrounded are of more modern date than itself. It was not planted in the midst of a Hindu population, but the city, as we now see it, has grown up under its shadow. Old Muttra had been so often looted and harried by the Mu­hammadans that it had practically ceased to exist as a city at all. It was a place of pilgrimage, as it had always been; there were sarais for the accommodation of travellers, the ruins of old temples, and a few resident families of Brahmans to act as guides; but otherwise it was a scene of desolation, and on the spot where Muttra now stands there was no town until Abd-un-Nabi founded it. From the mosque as a central point diverge the main thoroughfares, leading respectively towards Brindaban, Dig, Bharatpur and the civil station. They are fine broad streets and have throughout, been; paved with substantial stone flags brought from the, Bharatpur quarries. Many mean tumbledown hovels are allowed to obtrude themselves on the view; but the majority of the buildings that face the thoroughfares are of handsome and imposing character. Nearly all of them have been erected during the period of British rule, and in all of them the design is of similar character. The front is of carved stone with a central archway and arcades on both sides let out as shops on the ground floor. Above are projecting balconies in several storeys, supported on corbels, the arches being filled in with the minute reticulated tracery of an infinite variety of pattern. One of the most noticeable buildings in point of size is the temple of Dwarka Dhis, founded by the Gwalior treasurer, Parikh Ji, in 1815. On the opposite side of the street is the palace of the Rajas of Bharatpur, the lofty and enriched entrance gateway of which was added by Raja Balwant Singh and the magnificent brass doors by his successor, Raja Jaswant Singh. Close by is the mansion of Seth Lakhmi Chand, built at a cost of Rs. 1,00,000. One of the latest architectural works with which the city has been adorned is the temple near the Chhata Bazar built by Deva Chand Bohra and completed in 1871. There are many other temples in the city erected at great cost during the nineteenth century, which it is unnecessary here to specify in detail;*(A list is given in Growse’s Mathura, pp.165 foll.) but some of the most recent buildings deserve notice. These are the temple of Madan Mohan, built in 1896 by the Rana of Udaipur at the cost of Rs. 1,00,000; the Flora Hall built in 1893 at a cost of Rs. 40,000, by Mr. W. E. Blackstone of Chicago in memory of his daughter; the dharmsala of Seths Duli Chand and Harmukh Rai of Hathras constructed in 1901 at a cost of Rs. 60,000; and the dharmsala of Seths Har Dial and Bishan Dial of Muttra completed in 1904 at a cost of some Rs. 70,000. If the new city was ever surrounded by walls, not a vestige of them now remains, though the four principal entrances are still called the Brindaban, Dig, Bharatpur and Holi darwazas. The last named is the approach from the civil station, and here a lofty and elaborately sculptured stone arch has been erected over the roadway in accordance with the local design. As the work was commenced at the instance of the late Mr. Bradford Hardinge, for several years collector of the district, it is named in his honour the Hardinge gate. After his death it was surmounted by a cupola, intended at some future time to receive a clock: the whole work cost nearly Rs. 14,000.

MODERN INSTITUTIONS

In the outskirts of the city, near the Kans-ka Tila and adjoining the old munsif's court, are the dispensaries for males and females. The high school, which lies near the river on the road leading from the city to the Sadr Bazar, is a large building, and was opened by Sir William Muir on January 21st, 1870: it was erected at a cost of Its. 13,000, out of which the Government granted Rs. 8,000; the remainder was contributed by private subscriptions or the municipality. There are numerous other educational institutions in the city. The middle vernacular school is accommodated in the building on the old fort already mentioned; there is also an Angle-vernacular school belonging to the American Mission at the Flora Hall in the heart of the city; a municipal primary school for boys in the Sadr Bazar, and Government primary schools for girls at Samighat and Mata­gali. There are 13 other schools aided by the municipality and some twenty private schools or pathshalas; among the latter the best known are Salig Ram's pathshala, Kali Charan's pathshala, Bhajan Lal's pathshala, and the St. John's Mission school the police-station is a large building outside the city on the Bharat­pur road.

SADR BAZAR

The Sadr Bazar forms a small town by itself, entirely dis­tinct from the city. There is a fair proportion of brick houses in it, but a great many are built of mud; and the only place of note within or near it is the Jumna Bagh. This is a large walled garden, the property of the Seths, and contains two very hand-some chhatris or cenotaphs, in memory of Parikh Ji, the founder of the family, and Mani Ram, his successor. The latter, which was built in 1837 A.D., is of exceedingly beautiful and elaborate design; perhaps the most perfect specimen ever executed of the reticulated stone tracery for which Muttra is famous. The adjoin­ing garden has a small house and enclosed courtyard on the bank of the river, and, in the centre, an obelisk of white stone raised on a very high and substantial plinth of the same material with the following inscription:"Erected to the memory of Robert Sutherland, Colonel in Maharaj Daulat Rao Scindia's service, who departed this life on the 28th July 1804, aged 36 years. Also in remembrance of his son, C. P. Sutherland (a very promising youth), who died at Hndia on the 14th October 1801, aged three years." Colonel Sutherland was the officer whom DuBoigne, on his retirement in 1795, left in command of the brigade stationed at Muttra. In 1798 after Perron had become Daulat Rao's commander-in-chief, Sutherland was discharged for intrigu­ing with the other Maratha chiefs; but not long after he recovered his post through the interest of his father-in-law, Colonel John Hessing. In 1803 Sutherland, like the other British officers in Sindhia's service, received a pension from the Government, but he lived only one year to enjoy it.

THE CIVIL STATION AND CANTONMENTSS

The cantonments immediately adjoin the Sadr Bazar on the south, the residential bungalows stretching right up to it, and the Roman Catholic and Anglican churches, which have already been described, being situated close by. The cavalry barracks lie further to the west on either side of the main road to Agra and are spread out over an extensive tract of ground, stretching from the Cawnpore-Achnera railway as far as the Damdama. Immediately beyond the latter lies the collector's court-house, built in 1861, the new tahsili, the new munsif's court, the jail, and the Muttra museum with the large open space that forms the cavalry parade ground, in the rear. On the opposite side of the road lie the public gardens, the inspection bungalow belonging to the Public Works department, and the sessions judge's new court-house; while between these and the cantonments lies the civil station. South of the civil station, on both sides of the road to Agra and to Mahaban, are the long stretches of open ground that form the military grass farm, what is now the Muttra museum is a handsome building with a carved front in the Muttra style, close to the Agra road. It was commenced by Mr. Thornhill, magistrate of the district before and at the time of the Mutiny, who raised the money for the purpose by public subscription, intending to make it a rest-house for native gentlemen of rank, whenever they had occasion to visit headquarters. After an expenditure of Rs.30,000 the work was interrupted by the Mutiny. His successor Mr. Best added to the building in various ways, which did not improve it, and after him it was abandoned to utter neglect, having obtained the nick-name of "Thornhill's folly." In 1874 the idea of converting it into a museum received the support of Sir John Strachey, and the build­ing was subsequently completed by various additions at a cost of nearly Rs. 14,000. In it are now accommodated a large number of sculptures and fragments of antiquarian interest which have been dug up at Muttra.

POPULATION

Muttra is seventeenth on the list of the cities of the province, and in 1901 had a total population, including that of the canton­ments, of 60,042 persons, 27,924 of whom were females. Popula­tion has fluctuated to some extent, there having been 59,281 inhabitants in 1872, 57,724 in 1881, and 61,195 in 1891. Classi­fied according to religion there were in the municipality alone 44,374 Hindus, 12,034 Musalmans, 394 Christians, 196 Jains, 60 Sikhs, 50 Aryas and six Parsis. Among the Hindus, Brah­mans were numerically the strongest caste, numbering 8,253 persons; and after them came Chamars, 6,054; Banias, 5,947; Koris, 3,559; Rajputs, 1,975; Malis, 1,415; Kayasths, 1,356; Ahirs, 1,283; Kumhars, 1,117; and Sonars, 1,060. Among Musalmans Sheikhs predominate, numbering 5,412 persons; and are followed by Pathans, 2,098; and Bhangis, 1,251. The occu­pations of the people are diverse. At the last census in 1901, 31.4 per cent. were found to be engaged in industrial pursuits. This comprises a very large class and includes all those employed in the preparation and supply of material substances, 37 per cent.; workers in textile fabrics and dress, 22 per cent.; and workers in metals and precious stones, 10 per cent. Next come those who follow a professional career and make up 13.5 per cent. of the whole population; and they are followed by general labourers, 12.5 per cent.; those engaged in personal services, 12.4 per cent.; and agriculturists, 12.2 per cent. The commer­cial population accounted for 7.7 per cent. of the whole; 6.9 per cent. Had means of subsistence independent of occupation and 3.4 per cent. were in Government service. The chief industry of Muttra is stone-carving some account of which, as also of the manufacture of paper and brass idols, has already been given in Chapter II. The chief imports into the city according to the octroi returns are food, grains, sugar, ghe, and animals for slaughter, oil-seeds, cloth, chemicals, drugs, spices and metals. Of these are probably locally consumed, but a considerable quantity of cotton and grain comes into the city only to be exported, usually without breaking bulk. The business done in country produce is increasing, but it cannot as yet be considered great for a city of the size of Muttra. The opening of the Nagda railway will probably exercise some effect on the trade of the city.

MUNICIPALITY

Muttra was first constituted a municipality; in 1866. The municipal board,as now established under Act I of 1900, consist of 17 members, 13 of whom, including the chairman, are elected while four are appointed. The income of the board is raised chiefly by an octroi-tax on imports and is expended on conser­vancy, lighting, education and public works. Details have already been given in Chapter IV, and the income and expendi­ture year by year from 1891 onwards will be found in the appen­dix*(Appendix,tableXVI). The octroi limits include the cantonments and a share in the proceeds of the tax is paid to the cantonment committee. The work of secretary is performed by a paid servant of the board. The health of the city is generally good and the sanitary condition of the town is favourable. Drinking water is obtained from the Jumna as well as from wells, both inside and outside the city; the well water, however, is often brackish. The sewage of the city is at present collected in cess-tanks built in several quarters for the purpose and then carried by carts to the outskirts of the city where it is trenched.

MUTTRA Tahsil.

This, the headquarters tahsil, forms the south-western subdivision of the district and lies between the parallels of 27°14' and 27°39'N. And 77°20' and 77°51'E. The Chhata tahsil lies on the north; tahsils Mat and Mahaban on the east, being separated from Muttra by the river Jumna; on the south is the Kiraoli tahsil of the Agra district; and on the west the boundary marches with the independent state of Bharatpur. The tahsil is symmetrical in shape, but is broader in the northern part than in the southern; its total length is 29 miles and its average breadth is about 12 miles. Muttra possesses one completely isolated village—Phulwara—surrounded by Bharatpur territory; and there are six villages belonging to that state surrounded by land of the Muttra tahsil; these are Bariya, Umri, Bad, Bhainsa, Shamspur and Dharampur.

The tahsil is a gently sloping plain. The only elevation worthy of notice in it is the Giriraj or Annakut hill at Gobardhan, a rocky eminence running north-east and south-west, parallel to the Bharatpur ranges and celebrated in the mythological legends of the Hindus. The hill is about five miles long and stands about a hundred feet above the plain at its southern end, while at the northern end it is little more than a heap of stones. It is covered with very scanty vegetation, rises abruptly out of the plain, and exercises but little influence on the character of the soil within a few hundred yards even of its base. Khadar or low alluvial soil, ravines, and sandy downs are found along the Jumna, as in Mahaban, and the effects of the river on the soil are manifest for a distance of about three miles inland. At Koila, near Bad, is a horse-shoe depression surrounded by low raviny ground on a level with the general surface of the country; but from the line where the Jumna ceases to exert its influence up to a line where the soil visibly changes for the worse as the Bharatpur ranges of hills are approached, the whole of the tahsil is one flat, uniform plain without a single river or stream to diversify its surface. The soil is for the most part a firm piliya or light loam, with here and there veins of bhur and an odd hillock of puth. Except in the ill-defined line of drainage known as the western depression, the tarai or low-lying inundated area is insignificant. The Agra canal runs down the whole length of the tahsil from north to south and in connection with it several drainage cuts have been made, which have already been described in Chapter I. These have relieved the tracts watered by the canal of waterlogging and have to a certain extent diversified the face of the country. The area of the tahsil varies to some extent from year to year owing to changes in the course of the Jumna; but for the five years ending in 1907 the total area was returned on an average at 253,072 acres. Of this 18,255 acres or 7.21 per cent. were recorded barren; but only 2,196 acres or less than one per cent. were barren waste unfit for cultivation, the remainder being occupied by sites, roads, build­ings and the like. The culturable land out of cultivation amounted to 52,705 acres or 20.82 per cent. of the total area of the tahsil, old fallow accounting for 28,653 and new fallow for 16,584 acres. The cultivated area for the same period averaged 182,112 acres or 71.96 per cent. of the whole, a lower proportion than that of any other tahsil in the district. On the other hand. 70,487 acres or 38.71 per cent. of this were on an average irrigated—the proportion being the highest in the district. There are no marshes or tanks in the tahsil and the area watered from "other sources" is necessarily very restricted; and 73.62 per cent. of the irrigation is now carried on from the canal. Muttra tahsil has benefited more than any other from the con­struction of the canal. Before this was built the average depth of water from the surface was some 50 feet, and it was a matter of considerable expense to sink a well, more especially as the sandiness of the sub-soil generally necessitated the construction of a masonry cylinder. At the present time however the water level varies from 30 to 40 feet in the tracts which are unaffected by the canal and is lowest in the centre of the tahsil where it reaches 60 feet. The average area watered from wells is 18,515 acres or 26.26 per cent. of the irrigated area. The kharif is the principal harvest and averages 116,861 acres as against 83,787 acres sown in the rabi, while the area twice cropped within the year amounts to 19,243 acres or 10.56 per cent. of the net cul­tivation. The principal crops grown in the autumn are juar and cotton, alone or in combination with arhar; after this comes bajra, alone or similarly combined, and guar, while small areas are under maize and moth. In the spring 36.57 per cent. of the harvest is occupied by barley or barley intermixed with gram, 27.36 per cent. by gram alone, and 25.24 per cent. by wheat; while the last named crop, in combination either with barley or with gram, covers an additional 4.81 per cent.

Cultivation is up to the general standard of the district, and the weed baisuri is almost unknown. The chief cultivating castes are Jats, Rajputs, Brahmans, Chamars and Muham­madans. The Jats are just as skilful and industrious as their brethren in the Doab parganas; but the others are far inferior to them. In 1907-08 proprietors as such held 16.69 per cent. of the cultivated area, occupancy and exproprietary tenants 25.11 per cent. And tenants-at-will 56.69 per cent.; the small remainder being rent-free. Muttra contains 227 villages, at present divided into 781 mahals. Of the latter, 250, representing 36.36 per cent. of the area, are in the hands of single zamindars, and 197 or 17.02 per cent. are held in joint zamindari. Of the remainder 96 or 6.32 per cent. are held in perfect and 137 or 22.77 per cent. in imperfect pattidari tenure; while 23 or 4.51 per cent. are bhaiyachara. The number of pattidari estates is the smallest of any tahsil in the district; on the other hand no less than 77 mahals or 12.99 per cent. are held revenue-free, while one belongs to the Government. Jats, here as elsewhere, own the largest area, their proprietary possessions extending over 41,358 acres. Next come Brahmans, 37,366; Rajputs, 32,607; and Banias, 17,692 acres. Smaller areas are held by Gosains, Musalmans, Kayasths, Khattris, Gujars, Ahirs and Lodhas. The largest landholder is the temple of Rangji at Brindaban, whose endowment includes seven whole villages and portions of six others assessed to a revenue demand of Rs. 31,319. The Lala Babu estate comprises two whole villages and parts of two others with a demand of Rs. 10,250; Seth Bhikh Chand of Muttra owns two whole villages and parts of nine others with a revenue of Its. 10,143; and Babu Kalyan Singh of Muttra pays Rs. 8,548 on one whole village and parts of eleven others. Two villages belong to the purohit of the Chattarbhuj temple at Muttra, paying a revenue of Rs. 6,931; the Raja of Awa holds five more with a demand of Rs. 12,704; and Muhammad Mohsin Khan of Karahri possesses portions of seven villages assessed to Rs. 4,220.

In 1881 the tahsil had a population of 220,307 persons, and since that time the total has steadily increased. At the follow­ing enumeration of 1891 the number had risen to 234,914, while at the last census in 1901, there were 246,521 inhabitants, of whom 113,997 were females. The average density is 623 persons to the square mile—the highest in the district; but the rate is swollen by the inclusion of a large city population. Classified according to religions, there were 214,349 Hindus, 30,556 Musalmans, 848 Christians, 504 Jains, 183 Aryas, 74 Sikhs, four Parsis and three Brahmo Samajists. Brahmans are the numerically strongest Hindu caste, numbering 43,426 persons, while after them come Chamars, 36,142; Rajputs, 22,457; Banias, 18,000; and Jats, 13,784. Other castes with over 2,000 members apiece are Koil, Bairagis, Jogis, Gadariyas, Gujars, Barhais, Nais, Kumkars, Kahars, Ahirs, Kayasths, Kachhis, Bhaugis, Malis, Dhobis, Sonars and Darzis. The chief Muhammadan subdivisions arc Sheikhs, Bhangis, Pathans, and converted Rajputs, Saiyids and Faqirs. The tahsil is mainly agricultural in charac­ter, though Muttra is a commercial and industrial centre of growing importance, especially in regard to the cotton trade. The number of those engaged in personal services is also large owing to the presence of a large city population; and there are also a large number of graziers.

There are six towns in the tahsil. These comprise the two municipalities of Muttra and Brindaban, the cantonment of Muttra, and the Act XX towns of Gobardhan, Sonkh and Farah. Besides these there are several places of some size and importance. O1, Aring, and Jait possess police stations; Radhakund is a famous place of pilgrimage; and Magorra, Nainupatti, Bachhgaon, Jhundawai, Parson, Phondar and Beri possess over two thousand inhabitants each. Lists of the markets, fairs, schools and post-offices will be found in the appendix.

Muttra tahsil is admirably supplied with means of commu­nication. The Agra-Dehli Chord railway traverses the whole tahsil from south to north; and the Nagda-Muttra railway from west to east; and closely parallel to the former runs the Cawnpore-Achnera railway on the metre-gauge system as far as Muttra city. There is also a branch of the latter which connects Muttra and Brindaban. Following the alignment of the Agra-Dehli Chord railway runs the metalled provincial road from Agra to Dehli, while other metalled roads run to Bharatpur, Dig and Hathras. A small metalled approach road connects the town of Farah with the Parkham station on the Cawnpore-Achnera railway; and the stations of Bad and Farah in the Agra-Dehli Chord railway with the metalled road from Agra to Muttra. Unmetalled roads connect Muttra with Sonkh, and Sonkh with Gobardhan and Sahar. The Jumna river is bridged for the Cawnpore-Achnera railway at Muttra city, and the bridge is also used for cart and passenger traffic; while elsewhere the passage of the river is effected by means of ferries. A list of these is given in the appendix; the most important are those at Brindaban on the road to Mat and at Gokulghat on the road to Mahaban.

In the days of Akbar the present tahsil of Muttra was divided among the mahals of Mangotla, O1, Mathura, Maholi and Sahar. To the Jats is attributed the destruction of O1 and the creation of the pargana of Farah, and the division of Mangotla into the two parganas of Sonkh and Sousa. From Sahar and a few villages of Sonkh was formed late in the 18th century the pargana of Gobardhan, which was created as a waqf for Raza Quli Beg by Najaf Khan. The whole tract formed part of the territories ceded to the East India Company by Daulat Rao Sindhia in 1803. Sonkh and Sousa were at first made over to the Raja of Bharatpur, and Gobardhan was granted free of assessment to Kunwar Lachhman Singh, a younger son of Raja Ranjit Singh of Bharatpur, the rest of the pargana, lying outside pargana Farah, being formed into a distinct pargana called Aring. Next Sonkh and Sousa were resumed in 1805 and made over to Sindhia as a jagir for his wife and daughter, only to be finally resumed three years later and annexed, like Farah, to the district of Agra. Gobardhan was annexed to Agra in 1826. On the formation of the new district of Muttra in 1832, all these parganas, except Farah, together with Sahar, Shergarh and Kosi were transferred to it. The whole at first constituted one tahsil with the headquarters at Sahar, where the tahsildar resided. The home pargana, however, was administered by a peshkar in independent charge, who held his office in the civil station. In 1838 Sahar was detached and, along with Shergarh, made into a separate tahsil, while the rest of the tract was formed into a second tahsil with the headquarters at Aring. Thirty years later, or in 1867, the head-quarters were removed from Aring to Muttra and the peshkar's establishment at the latter place was broken up. The last change was made in October 1st, 1878 when 84 villages from the Farah tahsil of the Agra district were incorporated in the Muttra tahsil.

At the present day the tahsil constitutes a revenue and criminal subdivision, the charge of which is usually entrusted to the senior joint or assistant magistrate on the district staff. In police matters the jurisdiction is divided between the police stations of Muttra, Sadr Bazar, Brindaban, Jait, Aring, Gobar­dhan, Sonkh, Farah and O1.