DHAR

This article appears in Volume V08, Page 142 of the Encyclopedia Britannica.

Encyclopedia Britannica - Main :: DEM-DIO

DHAR , a native state of India, in the Bhopawar agency, Central India. It includes many Rajput and Bhil feudatories, and has an area of 1775 sq. m. The raja is a Punwar Mahratta. The founder of the present ruling family was Anand Rao Punwar, a descendant of the

great

GREAT

Paramara clan of Rajputs who from the 9th to the 13th century, when they were driven out by the Mahommedans, had ruled over Malwa from their

capital

CAPITAL (i.e. capital stock or fund)
CAPITAL (Lat. caput, head)

at Dhar. In 1142 Anand Rao received Dhar as a fief from Ball Rao, thepeshwa, the victory of the Mahrattas thus restoring the sovereign power to the family which seven centuries before had been expelled from this very city and country. Towards the close of the 18th and in the early part of the 19th century, the state was subject to a

series

SERIES (a Latin word from serere, to join)

of spoliations by Sindia and Holkar, and was only preserved from destruction by the talents and courage of the adoptive mother of the fifth raja. By a treaty of 1819 Dhar passed under British protection, and bound itself to act in sub-ordinate co-operation. The state was confiscated for rebellion in 1857, but in 1860 was restored to Raja Anand Rao Punwar, then a

minor

, with the exception of the detached

district

DISTRICT

of Bairusia, which was granted to the begum of

Bhopal

BHOPAL

. Anand Rao, who received the personal title Maharaja and the K.C.S.I. in 1897, died in 1898, and was succeeded by Udaji Rao Punwar. In 1901 the population was 142,115. The state includes the ruins of Mandu, or Mandogarh, the Mahommedan

capital

CAPITAL (i.e. capital stock or fund)
CAPITAL (Lat. caput, head)

of Malwa.
The TowN OF DHAR is 33 M. W. of Mhow, 908 ft. above the sea. Pop. (1901) 17,792. It is picturesquely situated among lakes and trees surrounded by barren hills, and possesses, besides its old walls, many interesting buildings, Hindu and Mahommedan, some of them containing records of a

great

GREAT

historical importance. The Lat Masjid, or Pillar Mosque, was built by Dilawar Khan in 1405 out of the remains of Jain temples. It derives its name from an iron pillar, supposed to have been originally set up at the beginning of the s3th century in commemoration of a victory, and bearing a later inscription recording the seven days' visit to the town of the emperor Akbar in 1598. The pillar, which was 43 ft. high, is now overthrown and broken. The Kamal Maula is an enclosure containing four tombs, the most notable being that of Shaikh Kamal Maulvi (Kamal-ud-din), a follower of the famous 13th-century Mussulman saint Nizam-ud-din Auliya.' The mosque known as Raja Bhoj's school was built out of Hindu remains in the 14th or 15th century: its name is derived from the slabs, covered with

inscriptions

INSCRIPTIONS (from Lat. inscribere, to write upon)

giving rules of Sanskrit grammar, with which it is paved. On a small hill to the north of the town stands the fort, a conspicuous

pile

PILE

of red sandstone, said to have been built by Mahommed ben Tughlak of Delhi in the 14th century. It contains the palace of the raja. Of modern institutions may be mentioned the high school, public lilrary,

hospital

, and the chapel, school and

hospital

of the Canadian Presbyterian mission. There is also a government opium depot for the payment of duty, the town being a considerable centre for the trade in opium as well as in grain.
The town, the name of which is usually derived from Dhara Nagari (the city of sword blades), is of great antiquity, and was made the capital of the Paramara chiefs of Malwa by Vairisinha IL, who transferred his headquarters hither from Ujjain at the close of the 9th century. During the rule of the Paramara dynasty Dhar was famo us throughout India as a centre of culture and learning; but, after suffering various vicissitudes, it was finally conquered by the Mussulmans at the beginning of the 14th century. At the close of the century Dilawar Khan, the builder of the Lat Masjid, who had been appointed

governor

GOVERNOR (from the Fr. gouverneur, from gouverner, O. Fr. governer, Lat. gubernare, to steer a ship, to direct, guide)

in 1399, practically established his independence, his son Hoshang Shah being the first Mahommedan king of Malwa. Under this dynasty Dhar was second in importance to the capital Mandu. Subsequently, in the time of Akbar, Dhar fell under the dominion of the Moguls, in whose hands it remained till 1930, when it was conquered by the Mahrattas.
See Imperial Gazetteer of India (Oxford, 1908).

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