Baghelkhand
This article has been extracted from THE IMPERIAL GAZETTEER OF INDIA , 1908. OXFORD, AT THE CLARENDON PRESS. |
Note: National, provincial and district boundaries have changed considerably since 1908. Typically, old states, ‘divisions’ and districts have been broken into smaller units, units, and many tahsils upgraded to districts.Many units have since been renamed. Therefore, this article is being posted mainly for its historical value.
Baghelkhand
A tract adjoining Bundelkhand and forming the easternmost section of the Central India Agency. It lies roughly between 22 40' and 25 o' N. and 8o° 30' and 82 57' E., and derives its name from the Baghela Rajput clan, which has held it during the last six or seven hundred years.
The tract falls naturally into two divisions, separated by the Kaimur range, which strikes across it from south-west to north-east. The section lying to the west of this range consists, except for a small area in the south, near the town of Maihar, where the Bandair (Bhander) range terminates, of a wide elevated plain about 1,100 feet above sea-level, while the eastern portion is a rough hilly tract cut up by a succession of long parallel ridges belonging to the Vindhyan system, heavily clothed in jungle. Through the western section runs the Tons river with its tributaries, while the Son and its affluents traverse the eastern section. The geological riches of this region are so varied as almost completely to epitomize the most important formations to be met with throughout Peninsular India. It includes, moreover, the type areas of several important groups, the Rewah, Bandair, Kaimur, Kheinjua, and Sirbu rocks, which derive their names from localities in this region. North of the Kaimur range all subdivisions of the Upper Vindhyan rocks are to be met with, while the Lower Vindhyans are more com- pletely represented here than elsewhere in India, together with the curious volcanic ash-beds known as the porcellanites. The hills in the eastern section of the tract belong mostly to the Bijawar formation, the underlying gneiss outcropping in the valleys. This region, lying between the Vindhyan outcrop in the north and the Gondwana in the south, occupies the site of a once lofty range, the materials for both the Vindhyan and Gondwana sediments being products of its denudation.
The Bijavvar rocks, moreover, exhibit an extraordinarily varied series, in which slates, sandstones, jaspers, bands of iron ore, limestones, basic lavas, and ash-beds are all represented. In the south the Bijawars and the underlying gneiss abut suddenly on the Gondwanas, which have been most carefully surveyed, on account of their coal-bearing strata (see Umaria). Farther south Cretaceous rocks of the Lameta series and Deccan trap appear, the hill on which Amarkantak stands being formed of the latter rock. The known mineral riches of the region are con- siderable, and more detailed examination is certain to reveal others ; coal, corundum, mica, galena, iron ores, ornamental marbles, red-banded jaspers, and the magnificent building materials furnished by Vindhyan sandstones and limestones are among its known treasures x .
The hills in the eastern section are covered with heavy jungle, on which the khair {Acacia Catechu), sat (Shorea robusta), saja (Terminalia tometitosa), mahua (Bassia latifolia), tendu (Diospyros tomentosa), achar [Buchanania latifolia), salai (Boswellia serrata), and a stunted form of teak are the common trees, while Grewia, Zizyphus, Phyllanthus, Carissa, dhawai ( Woodfordid), and similar species predominate in the under- growth.
The name Baghelkhand, or ' country of the Baghelas,' is of com- paratively late origin, and cannot have become common before the seventeenth or eighteenth century, as it is never used by the Muham- madan historians, who invariably style the region Ghora or Bhatghora. Before the Muhammadan period the tract was known as Dahala and Chedi, the latter term applying more strictly to the southern districts, now included partly in the Sohagpur pargana of Rewah State and partly in the Central Provinces.
The early Buddhist books, the Mahabharata, the Ramayana, and the Puranas, all connect this region with the Haihaya, Kalachuri, or Chedi clan. Nothing definite is known of the rise of this clan, but the fact that they employ in their dated records an era of which the initial year corresponds to a. d. 249 points to their having become a tribe of local importance somewhere about the third century. Their original habitat is always placed on the Narbada, with Mahishmati or Maheshwar as their capital town. From this position they appear to have been driven eastwards and to have finally acquired Kalinjar, where Krishna Chedi is said to have slain an evil-minded king who practised cannibalism. With this stronghold as a base, they gradually extended their dominions over what is now known as Baghelkhand. During the fourth and fifth
' The Economic Geology of India (1905) ; articles on ' Corundum.' ' Mica Deposits of India ' in Memoirs of the Geological Survey of India, vol. xxxiv ; ' The Vindhyan Series,' ibid., vol. vii, p. 1 ; 'The Southern Coal-fields of the Rewah G on d wan a Basin,' ibid., vol. xxi, p. 137 ; ' The Geology of the Son Valley,' ibid., vol. xxxi, p. 1 ; ' Fossil Flora of the Gondwana System,' Feistmantel and Zeiller in the Palaeontologia Indica. centuries the Gupta dynasty of Magadha was paramount over this region, as is shown by the records of the feudatory chiefs of the Uchhakalpa family and the Parivrajaka Rajas of Kho.
In one of these records the king is stated ' to have sought to give prosperity to the kingdom of Dahala together with the eighteen forest kingdoms.' Special interest attaches to the term ' forest kingdoms,' as it is also employed by Samudra Gupta in the Allahabad pillar inscription, when detailing his conquests ; and it refers no doubt to chiefs of this region, some of whom may possibly have been Haihayas. In the sixth century the Kalachuris must have become a ruling clan of some importance, as the Badami king Mangalisa records his victory over Buddha Varman Kalachuri of Chedi ; and the Brihat Sanhita, written at the same period, mentions the Chaidyas as an important Central Indian tribe. During the latter part of the seventh century the Kalachuris rapidly acquired the sovereignty of the whole tract, which came to be called after them Chedldesa or the land of the Chedis. Their chief stronghold was Kalinjar, and their proudest title Kalanjaradhishwara, or ' lords of Kalinjar.' During this period the Chandels were rising to power in Bundelkhand, the Paramaras in Malwa, the Rashtrakutas in Kanauj, and the Chalukyas in Gujarat and Southern India. The records of these clans relate many of their contests and alliances. The Kalachuris received their first blow at the hand of the Chandel chief Yasovarmma (925-55), who seized the fort of Kalinjar and its surrounding district, he and his successors assuming thenceforth the ancient Kalachuri title of ' lords of Kalinjar.' The Kaiachuris were still, however, a powerful tribe and continued to hold most of their possessions until the twelfth century.
It is not quite certain when the Baghelas established themselves in this district. After the advent of the Muhammadans had broken the power of the Kalachuris, the country fell to the Bhars, Chauhans, Sengars, Gonds, and other clans ; and there is no proof that the Baghelas entered the region before the thirteenth century. It is probable that they gained a footing in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, after the destruction of their kingdom in Gujarat by Ulugh Khan in 1296. From this time onward the history of the country becomes that of the Rewah State.
The ancient remains in the tract are considerable and have not as yet been exhaustively examined. The earliest monument dates from the third century B.C., when the Bharhut stupa (see Nagod) was erected, while the remains include cave-temples of the fourth and fifth centuries and mediaeval temples of the tenth to the thirteenth century.
The population consists very largely of jungle tribes, of whom the Gonds and Kols are the most numerous. The soils met with are mar, a kind of black soil ; and dumat and sigon, lighter soils found in the alluvial plateau north of the Kaimurs. In the hilly tracts south of the Kaimur range, the soil is agriculturally of little value. Kodon and rice are the two staple food-grains.
