proposed Preface for the Plebeians who would be kings

Preface to the “Plebeians”

“The plebeians who would be the kings”: copyright No.:L-28065/2007.

A Preface being an introduction to a book, gives an outline to the material, there-in and if that is so, then what I have called as Book I, is the proper Preface of my book, which however is very lengthy, so this piece is being added.

I have very romantically called this book or the explorations, there-in as something that I was destined to do, or was born for doing so. Someone reading my lines on the palm may declare so. But after seeing the mediocre outcome of the so-called a work of the destiny, does’nt impress even me. I would ,much rather, say that it has been a matter of chance that I was born in the 1st House of Katehar, about which, by now, every one had quite forgotten, through unceasing rigorous work of agriculture, through generations of a mean and miserly(saving stock of grain for three years against likely poor harvest, in dry-land farming) livelihood. And as the things were destined to happen , I lost my father at a very young age and was taken away to live in Nainital in suddenly an awesome comfort of good life. I turned from a topper to a mediocre second class student , but as destined, I got into the merchant-marine and went around the world many times over. I had the good sense of sending half the money home and called it a day at sea, owing to overwhelming sentiments for father and also for the mother-land, for reasons explained in the text akin to the Preface, and may be unduly so and in a fit of anguish, the way things were going.

However, even before things happened that made me talk of destiny, as if I was the chosen one to redeem the “Raghuvanshies of Katehar”, as if they would have perished otherwise, line, hook and sinker .I doubt any one is ever so thrilled among the country-cousins of Katehar, let alone those of Dobhi, who are insisting on a combined history of the two, notwithstanding the pargana of Sultanipur between the two of them and poles apart in the history and geography of the region I fear it may be berated amongst even amongst the closest of the cousins (simply for having done it). Another certainty is that only one copy would suffice for the entire village, which should come along unpaid for. So specially for the villages with the tag of the 1st house I am keeping something up my sleeve, that every one must buy at least the second edition or the Hindi version, which I intend calling; ”Katehar ke Raghuvanshi,ekal Hindu Samrat ,1194AD to 1793AD’ for the following reason,found in a book given to me by Rao Barauli.I quote:

Page(134)

Hindu Kings


The city was founded some three thousand years back .A detailed history of Kashi in chronological order is not traceable Only inscriptions on stone pillars and the existence of old temples and copper plates give us some rudimentary ideas about the line of kings that ruled Banaras .The city was under the sway of the kings of Kanauj for a considerable time. After the defeat of Raja Jai Chandra by the mussalman invaders one branch of the family fled eastward and set up and independent state. For many years the Gaharwar princes ruled banaras and afterwards they were compelled to retire to Kantit and Bana. The last in the line of the Gaharwar erected the old Rajput fort at Rajghat.The present Kantit family in Mirzapur claims its ancestry from this time.

The Kanauj kings did not penetrate in land and the country was held by Soeries,Bhars and other unsubdued tribes, who were independent throughout Avadh and the eastern districts. The district even today abounds with Bhars especially in Banaras tehsil.

Rajput colonization does not appear to have begun before the 12th or the13th centuries. This is the period popularly assigned to the establishment of the Raghubansi power. One Deo Kunwar came from Ayodhya ,the ancient seat of Raghubansis and married the daughter of Raja Banar, obtaining as dowry the Taluqa of Niar.The Raghubansis are the only Rajputs in the district who seemed to have acquired a position of independence.The Raghubansis claim descent from one Doman Deo,ninth in the direct descent from Deo Kunwar, who lived during the regime of Sikander Lodi and held Katehar as a rent-free tenure.” Unquote;

So even the history that speaks of us has Princess Bindumati married off to Deo Kunwar.Which in our bard’s story is married to the last King of Ayodhya, Nain deo. whose son was Salhe Kunwar, who fathered None Rao and Nangayee Rao While None Rao went away to Kashmir, Nangayee Rao fathered Deo Kunwar, who settled Deorayee in 1380AD.His great grand-father married the daughter of Raja Banar, sometime after 1194AD,after Jai Chandra shifted him to Rajghat in Varanasi or Banaras.Again,Doman Deo is said in the above description as the ninth in the descent from Deo Kunwar.Whereas factually, after Deo Kunwar,it was Birhaj Rai,then Pukar Rai,then Rai Khemraj Singh,then Udai Chand,then Ugaa Thakurayee,whose second son was Doman Deo who comes out to be seventh in line.
Doman Deo was contemporary of Sikander Lodi and even Sher Shah Suri(who had worked in his stable as a runaway in between 1501 to 1515)) upto 1545AD,i.e. three hundred and fifty years after the Raghuvanshies migrated from Ayodhya, and its odd that all Raghuvanshies claim descent from Doman Deo.So one purpose of this exercise is also for the purpose of correction of records in such haphazard descriptions as much as in some old Govt. Gazeteers, and bring for public viewing the correct order of the lineage,and specially for our suspicious cousins in Jaunpur,calling all Katehar cousins not only descendants of Doman Deo,but also of his Ahir consort(in jest).For the records sake Doman Deo fathered five sons from that lady,called,Jalho Mokal,Amba,Chan and Bariyasan Singh.Doman Deo’s other son was Kalyan Shah, whose son Ayirran Shah built the Ayar Kot ,near Varanasi, whose eleventh descent Pratap Narain Singh was adopted by maharaja of Vijayanagaram in Andhra Pradesh and Vijjy etc. were his descent and came to Chandravati ,near Kaithi to claim their share.

Our family bard Banshi Kavi made a record by his memory as a lot of preserved genealogy was thrown in the river Gomti,over some dispute between them, by the descendants of the Chaubeys who came from Ayodhya,accompanying Nain Deo,the last King of Ayodhya.He has done a remarkable work,but his mixing-up of Anno-Domini and Vikram Samvat is quite perplexing at times.

I have taken the benchmark of my own uncles birthdate from the Civil List and gone backwards,allotting a generous twenty-five years as an average to each of my long-living ancestors,eg.130(Ram Sunder Singh),110(Bharat Singh),96(Ram Rup Singh).instead of ASI’s meager 19 and a half years as an average for each generation,as Director Monuments Sri Soundarajan used for calculating Ayodhya’s age as per their excavations and comparing the same with my own table till Ikshawaku son of Manu and Satrupa,who established Ayodhya.Mr. Soundarajan was highly impressed and wrote to me twice, seeking information about the direct lineal descendants of the Raghuyvanshy dynasty of Ayodhya i.e. us.

I have to indeed mention the genealogical table come to my possession,also by chance and good wishes of the village-folk towards the family which had me moving with an invigorating zeal towards what the retired district judge had predicted about me,years ago,in the Lucknow Coffee House,to Thakur Ram Rup Singhji,on reading my palm.I traveled to Gaya and met our family panda(the record-keeper) and checked on the entries of my ancestors about the mystery of the 1857 martyr,Jaipal Singh,about which I read a paper in ICHR session of Kurukshetra and put in the website called , www.1857-amartyramong pwwbks.com and the same will be annexed in the book under consideration.There is another paper I should speak about which I read in the ICHR session of Mumbai,was “SherShah in the court of Doman Deo”.Although the great meandering catastrophy of the river Gomti in 1980,pulled me away from my preoccupation of the Raghuvanshies.

Again,it was the 150th anniversary of the martyrdom of Jaipal Singh that brought me back to get active in the cause of the book.I hope I will not keep my cousins and others waiting for too long,as I have decided to do it on my own,entirely,no body being attracted by my website or the blog.

I hope I am able to keep your attention glued to my story-telling in vernacular English,which I thought was fine for merchant marine globe-trotting,but realized its vagary starting on this project.And the requirement of my country cousins of the same book to be written in Hindi has also become my compulsion,so bless me to complete the Hindi version ,soonest ,but not so soon so as to stop you from buying this one,in the meanwhile,because that will not be an out and out translation.So please do not miss out the fantacy of the plebeians at your service.

Suresh Pratap Singh
Navi Mumbai
22.05.2009