1 and historical events.
2 131
3 At the western summit of the Sakesar hill are some rugged rocks
4 called the Virgins — Kunwari, whose origin is thus described : — In the
5 time of Muhammad Shah Tughlac[, the country was infested by bands
6 of glidzis ov j ill ddis who used to carry off booty and village maidens to
7 their fastnesses in Afghanistan. Some of them visited Bagh, * the
8 garden/ a village whose ruins are still traceable, held by the Tarer, a
9 tribe now apparently extinct, and the Tarer put some of their daughters
10 to death to prevent their falling into the bandits * hands, while others
11 sought refuge among the rocks which rent in twain at their prayers and
12 swallowed them up. The Tarers then scattered among the neighbouring
13 villages. 1 Ranithrod in Rawalpindi owes its name to the legend that the
14 Rajput women cast themselves over the precipice in the belief that
15 their husbands had been defeated by the Moslems, and that their
16 husbands on their return followed suit.^
17 How much real but forgotten history is preserved in such legends it
18 is impossible to say, but it appears certain that they often preserve relics
19 of ancient creeds or religious organizations. Thr.s Gurgaon derives its
20 name from the tradition that it was granted to Drona Acharya, guru of
21 Yudishthira.® But the best exemplar of this is furnished by the Kuruk-
22 shetr, an account of which will be found in Cunningham^s Arch. Survey
23 Tteporfs.
24 Attock (Atak) on the Indus means a stoppage, and various modern
25 legends attach to it from Sikh times/ Kot Bitliaur in the bills near-
26 by was R^ja Sir kap^s fortress, and by an ingenious suspension bridge he
27 used to cross the Indus to visit a Pair Rosamund until fate overtook
28 him and he fell into the river.®
29 The name Jalandhar, which is found in Kurrain and in Kulu as
30 well as in the plains city of that name, appears to preserve the memory
31 of a time when lake formations were much commoner than they are
32 now in North-West India. Various legends are connected with it.
33 In the Pandavas^ time Jalandhara, who reigned from the Sutlej to the
34 K^ngra hills, founded it, but it was destroyed and refounded by a
35 faqir Jalandharnath, in the days of Vikramaditya ® Many myths are
36 attached to it and its tanks, named Gupha and Brahmkund. Rahon
37 was originally Raghupur, and possesses a Surajkund or sun-pool, and
38 an old Hindu temple, while Nurmahal was once a Rajput fort called
39 Kot Kahlur or Ghalur. It has a sacred well called Ganga.'^
40 Another account makes Trigartta, Sanhr. for * three forts, ^ the
41 country between the Sutlej, Beas and Ravi, while Jdlandhara was
42 the portion of the hills over which Shiva threw Jalandhara to the
43 1 P. N. Q., I., § 697 Th9 Tarer are probably the modera crimiaal tribe called
44 Trerb .* see Vol. Ill, p. 453 infra.
45 2 Ib., Ill, § 101.
46 3 16., I, § 1068.
47 ^ 16., I, § 1029.
48 5 16. 1, § 102.
49 « /6., II, § 298.
50 ’ i6., § 876.