1 JAT, RAJPUT, AND ALLIED CASTES. 119
2 finest peasantry in India. Unfortunately the Settlement Reports of this
3 part of the country are often poor or even a'jsent altogether, while much of
4 [P. 230] the tract consists of Xative States. Thus except regarding such tribes as
5 have risen to political importance, I can give but scanty information. The
6 Jats of the Sikh tract are essentially husbandmen, and the standard of
7 agricultural practice among those at any rate of the more fertile northern
8 districts is as high as is reached in any portion of the Province. I would call
9 special attention to the cui'ious traditions of the Bhular, Man, and Her tribes,
10 an examination of which might produce interesting and valualjle results.
11 •P. 120- Abstract No. 75 on the opposite page* gives the distriliution of the tribes
12 21 so far as it is shown by our figures. I have an-anged them roughly in the
13 order to which they appear to occiir from west to east.
14 435. The Jat tribes of the Sikh tract. The Dhiilon (No. 1).— The Dhillon is one of the
15 large-t aud most widely distribntcd Jat tribes in tlie Province, Theii' head-qnarters would appear
16 from our tigures to be Gujrauwala aud Amritsar ; but they are found in large numbers along the
17 whole com-se of the Satluj from Fi'rozpur upwards, aud under the hills to the east of those two
18 districts. Tlie numbers returned for the Dehli District are curiously large, and I doubt somewliat
19 whether they really refer to the same tribe. Like the Goraya they claim to be Saroha Rajpiita
20 by origin, and to have come from Sirsa. If this he ti'ue they have probably moved up the Satluj,
21 aud then spread along westwards under the hills. But another story makes them descendants of a
22 Surajbansi Kajpiit named Lu who lived at Kharmor in the Malwa, and held some office at the
23 Dehli court. They are said to be divided into three great sections, the Baj, Saj, and Sanda.
24 The Virif (No. 2). — The head-quarters of the Virk appear to be the Gujrauwala and Lahore
25 Districts, especially the former in which tliey own 132 vill:ige3. They claim origin from a Manilas
26 Rajput called Virak, who left Jammu and settled at Ghuclili in Amritsar ; and in Gujranwala
27 nearly a third of them have returned themselves as Rajputs, but (hey marry freely with the .fat
28 tribes of the neighbourhood. They say that their ancestor Virak was descended from Malhan
29 Nams (llal again !) the founder of the Manhas tribe of Rajputs, aud was connected with the
30 Rajas of Jammu. Leaving Parghowal in Jammu, he settled in Amritsar and married a Gil Jat
31 girl. His decendants shortly afterwards moved westwards into Giijrauwala. There are three
32 main sections of the tribe, the Jopiu", Vachra, and Jau. Tlie tribe rose to some political import
33 ance about the end of last century, ruling a considerable tract in Gujrauwala and Lahore til .
34 subdued by Ranji't Singh. ^
35 The Sindhu (No 3). — Tlie Sindhu is, so far as our tigures go, the second laigcst Jat tribe,
36 being surpassed in numbers by the Sidliu only. Their head-quarters are the Amrit-ar aud Lahore
37 districts, but they are fouud all along the upper Satluj, aud under the hills from Ambala in the
38 east to Si'alkot and Giijriuwala in the west. They claim descent from the Raghobansi branch of
39 the Solar Rajputs through Ram Chandar of Ajudhia. They say that their ancestors were taken by
40 or accompanied llahmud to Ghazui, and returned duriug the thiiieeiith century or in the reign of
41 Firoz Shah from Afghanistan t<i India. Shortly afterwards they settled in the Manjfaa near
42 Lahore. Some of the Sindhu say that it was Ghazui in the Deccan, and not in Afghanistan, from
43 which they came ; while others have it that it was Ghadni in Bi'kaner. The Jalandhar Sindhu
44 say that they came from the south to the Manjha some two or three centui'ies ago when the
45 Pathiins dispossessed the JIanj Rajputs, and shortly afterwards moved from Amritsar to Ja'andhar
46 at the invitation of the Gils te take the place of the ejected Manj. Sir Lcpel Griffin is of opinion
47 that tlie real origin of the tribe is from North-Western Rajpiitana. The political liistory of the
48 tribe, which was of capital importance uuder the Sikhs, is given is great detai. at pages 223^,
49 360^, and -417 to 428 of the same writer's Panjdb Chiefs. Tlie Sindhu have the same peculiar
50 marriage customs already described as practised by the Suhi Jats. The Sindhu of Karnal worship
51 Kala Mahiu- or Kala Pir, their ancestor, whose chief shrine is said to be at Thana Satra in Sialkot,
52 their alleged place of origin.
53 The Bhular (No 4). — The Bhiilar, Her, and Man tribes call themselves ad or " original "
54 Jats, and are said to have sprung from WieJat or " Matted hair " of Mahadeo, whose title is
55 Bhiila Mahadeo. They say that the Malwa was their original home, and are commonly reckoned
56 as two and a half tribes, the Her only counting as a half. But the bards of the Mdn, among
57 which tribe several families have risen to political importance, say that the whole of the Man and
58 Bhvilar aud half the Her tribe of Rajputs were the earliest Ksh,<itriya immigrants from Rajpiitana
59 to the Panjab. The head-quarters of the Bhular appear to be Lahore and ITfrozpur, and the
60 confines of the Manjha and Malwa ; but they are returned in small numbers f;om every division
61 in the Panjab except Dehli, Rawalpindi, and Peshawar, from almost (very disjrict, aud from every
62 Native State of the Eastern T'laius except Dujaua, Loharu, and Pataadi.