| These lower
castes and communities were early Hinduised. There is no doubt that at one time the
Bauris and the Bagdis had their own small kingdoms before they gave way to the Aryan
invaders. Even now the typical Bauri tract could easily be pointed out as pargana
Shergarh, the stretch of rolling rocky country between the Ajay and Damodar rivers. The
ruins of the forts at Dighi, Churulia and Dihi Shergarh villages are clearly remnants of
the old Bauri kingdom. The Sadgops, another so-called low caste held a portion of Gopbhum,
the farthest headland of the promontory of rocky land, which juts out, in the district. It has been observed that "Gopbhum with part of the debatable
land between it and Panchet now included in the parganas
Salimpur and Senpahari was formerly, according to the universally currenttradition of the
tract, the seat of a Sadgop dynasty, some traces of which are still extant. The only Raja
of the race whose name still survives was Mahendra Nath, or, as he is locally called,
Mahindi Raja. His seat was Amrargarh, close to the station and town of Mankur, and the
long lines of fortification, which enclosed his walled town, are still visible.How far the
Sadgop power extended to the east can be surmised from the local prevalence of the members
of the modern caste, the Aguris.
The line of Marches which lies south of Katwa to the west
of the Bhagirathi is still held by this caste who occupy the old deltaic soil between this
line and the present boundary of Gopbhum in which the Sadgops are still the most prominent
caste. The Aguris, by their own admission, are the product of unions between the Khetris
of the house of Burdwan and the Sadgops of the Gopbhum dynasty, and the caste arose within
the last two hundred years. This recent formation of the Aguri caste indicates that
the Sadgop kingdom of Gopbhum existed in however curtailed a state till almost modern
times, first as subject to the Mughals, and then under the shadow of the house of Burdwan
itself. |
