BHANDARA, a town and district of British India, in the Nagpur division of the Central Provinces. The town (pop. in 1901, 14,023) is situated on the left bank of the river Wainganga, 7 m. from a station on the Bengal-Nagpur railway. It has considerable manufactures of cotton cloth and brass-ware, and a first-grade middle school, with a library.
The District of Bhandara has an area of 3965 sq. m. In 1901 the population was 663,062, showing a decrease of 11% since 1891 compared with an increase of 8% in the preceding decade. The district is bounded on the N., N.E. and E. by lofty hills, inhabited by Gonds and other aboriginal tribes, while the W. and N.W. are comparatively open. Small branches of the Satpura range make their way into the interior of the district. The Ambagarh or Sendurjhari hills, which skirt the south of the Chandpur pargana, have an average height of between 300 and 400 ft. above the level of the plain. The other elevated tracts are the Balahi hills, the Kanheri hills and the Nawegaon hills. The Wainganga is the principal river in the district, and the only stream that does not dry up in the hot weather,—its affluents within the district being the Bawanthari, Bagh, Kanhan and Chulban. There are 3648 small lakes and tanks in Bhandara district, whence it is called the “lake region of Nagpur”; they afford ample means of irrigation. More than one-third of the district lies under jungle, which yields gum, medicinal fruit and nuts, edible fruits, lac, honey and the blossoms of the mahuá tree (Bassia latifolia), which are eaten by the poorer classes, and used for the manufacture of a kind of spirit. Tigers, panthers, deer, wild hogs and other wild animals abound in the forests, and during the rainy season many deaths occur from snake-bites. Iron is the chief mineral product. Gold is also found in the bed of the Sone river. Laterite, shale and sandstone occur all over the district. Native cloth, brass wares, pot-stone wares, cartwheels, straw and reed baskets, and a small quantity of silk, form the only manufactures. The principal crops are rice, wheat, millet, other food-grains, pulse, linseed, and a little sugar-cane. The district is traversed by the main road from Nagpur to the east, and also by the Bengal-Nagpur railway. It suffered in the famine of 1896-1897, and yet more severely in 1900.
Bhandara district contains 25 semi-independent chiefships. These little states are exempted from the revenue system, and only pay a light tribute. Their territory, however, is included within the returns of area and population above given. The climate of Bhandara is unhealthy,—the prevailing diseases being fever, small-pox and cholera. Nothing is known of the early history of the district. Tradition says that at a remote period a tribe of men, called the Gaulis or Gaulars, overran and conquered it. At the end of the 17th century it belonged to the Gond raja of Deogarh. In 1743 it was conquered by the Mahrattas, who governed it till 1853, when it lapsed to the British government, the raja of Nagpur having died without an heir.
BHANG, an East Indian name for the hemp plant, Cannabis sativa (see [Hemp]), but applied specially to the leaves dried and prepared for use as a narcotic drug. In India the products of the plant for use as a narcotic and intoxicant are recognized under the three names and forms of Bhang, Gunja or Ganja, and Churrus or Charas. Bhang consists of the larger leaves and capsules of the plant on which an efflorescence of resinous matter has occurred. The leaves are in broken and partly agglutinated pieces, having a dark-green colour and a heavy but not unpleasant smell. Bhang is used in India for smoking, with or without tobacco; it is prepared in the form of a cake or manjan, and it is made into an intoxicating beverage by infusing in cold water and straining. Gunja is the flowering or fruit-bearing tops of the female plants. It is gathered in stalks of several inches in length, the tops of which form a matted mass, from the agglutination of flowers, seeds and leaflets by the abundant resinous exudation which coats them. Churrus is the crude resinous substance separated from the plant. The use of preparations of hemp among the Mussulman and Hindu population of India is very general; and the habit also obtains among the population of central Asia, the Arabs and Egyptians, extending even to the negroes of the valley of the Zambezi and the Hottentots of South Africa. The habit appears to date from very remote times, for Herodotus says of the Scythians, that they creep inside huts and throw hemp seeds on hot stones.
BHARAHAT, or Barhut, a village in the small state of Nagod in India, lying about 24° 15′ N. by 80° 45′ E., about 120 m. S.W. of Allahabad. General A. Cunningham discovered there in 1873 the remains of a stūpa (i.e. a burial mound over the ashes of some distinguished person) which were excavated, in 1874, by his assistant, J.D. Beglar. The results showed that it must have been one of the most imposing and handsome in India; and it is especially important now from the large number of inscriptions found upon it. The ancient name of the place has not been yet traced, but it must have been a considerable city and its site lay on the high road between the ancient capitals of Ujjenī and Kosāmbī. The stūpa was circular, 70 ft. in diameter and 42 ft. high. It was surrounded by a stone railing 100 ft. in diameter, so that between railing and stūpa there was an open circle round which visitors could walk; and the whole stood towards the east side of a paved quadrangle about 300 ft. by 320 ft., surrounded by a stone wall. On the top of the stūpa was an ornament shaped like the letter T, and as the base of the stūpa was above the quadrangle, the total height of the monument was between 50 and 60 ft. But its main interest, to us, lies in the railing. This consisted of eighty square pillars, 7 ft. 1 in. in height, connected by cross-bars about 1 ft. broad. Both pillars and cross-bars were elaborately carved in bas-relief, and most of them bore inscriptions giving either the name of the donor, or the subject of the bas-relief, or both. There were four entrances through the railing, facing the cardinal points, and each one protected by the railing coming out at right angles, and then turning back across it in the shape of the letter L. This gave the whole ground plan of the monument, and no doubt designedly so, the shape of a gigantic swastika (i.e. a symbol of good fortune). By the forms of the letters of the inscriptions, and by the architectural details, the age of the monument has been approximately fixed in the 3rd century B.C. The bas-reliefs give us invaluable evidence of the literature, and also of the clothing, buildings and other details of the social conditions of the peoples of Buddhist India at that period. The subjects are taken from the Buddhist sacred books, more especially from the accounts given in them of the life of the Buddha in his last or in his previous births. Unfortunately, only about half the pillars, and about one-third of the cross-bars have been recovered. When the stūpa was discovered the villagers had already carried off the greater part of the monument to build their cottages with the stones and bricks of it. The process has gone on till now nothing is left except what General Cunningham found and rescued and carried off to Calcutta. Even the mere money value of the lost pieces must be immense, and among them is the central relic box, which would have told us in whose honour the monument was put up.
See A. Cunningham, The Stūpa of Bharhut (London, 1879); T.W. Rhys Davids, Buddhist India (London, 1903).
(T. W. R. D.)