[1829.—"Every commune is surrounded with a circumvallation of thorns ... and the stacks of bhoos, or 'chaff,' which are placed at intervals, give it the appearance of a respectable fortification. These bhoos stacks are erected to provide provender for the cattle in scanty rainy seasons."—Tod, Annals, Calcutta reprint, i. 737.]
[BHOOT, s. H. &c., bhūt, bhūta, Skt. bhūta, 'formed, existent,' the common term for the multitudinous ghosts and demons of various kinds by whom the Indian peasant is so constantly beset.]
[1623.—"All confessing that it was Buto, i.e. the Devil."—P. della Valle, Hak. Soc. ii. 341.]
[1826.—"The sepoys started up, and cried 'B,hooh, b,hooh, arry arry.' This cry of 'a ghost' reached the ears of the officer, who bid his men fire into the tree, and that would bring him down, if there."—Pandurang Hari, ed. 1873, i. 107.]
BHOUNSLA, n.p. Properly Bhoslah or Bhonslah, the surname of Sivaji, the founder of the Mahratta empire. It was also the surname of Parsoji and Raghuji, the founders of the Mahratta dynasty of Berar, though not of the same family as Sivaji.
1673.—"Seva Gi, derived from an Ancient Line of Rajahs, of the Cast of the Bounceloes, a Warlike and Active Offspring."—Fryer, 171.
c. 1730.—"At this time two parganas, named Púna and Súpa, became the jagír of Sáhú Bhoslah. Sívají became the manager.... He was distinguished in his tribe for courage and intelligence; and for craft and trickery he was reckoned a sharp son of the devil."—Khāfī Khān, in Elliot, vii. 257.
1780.—"It was at first a particular tribe governed by the family of Bhosselah, which has since lost the sovereignty."—Seir Mutaqherin, iii. 214.
1782.—"... le Bonzolo, les Marates, et les Mogols."—Sonnerat, i. 60.
BHYACHARRA, s. H. bhayāchārā. This is a term applied to settlements made with the village as a community, the several claims and liabilities being regulated by established customs, or special traditional rights. Wilson interprets it as "fraternal establishments." [This hardly explains the tenure, at least as found in the N.W.P., and it would be difficult to do so without much detail. In its perhaps most common form each man's holding is the measure of his interest in the estate, irrespective of the share to which he may be entitled by ancestral right.]