Introduction, passim; _Therî G[=a]th[=a] Commentary_, _Peta Vatthu

Commentary_, and _Vim[=a]na Vatthu Commentary_, all three published by the P[=a]li Text Society. (T. W. R. D.) DHANIS, FRANCIS, BARON (1861-1909), Belgian administrator, was born in London in 1861 and passed the first fourteen years of his life at Greenock, where he received his early education. He was the son of a Belgian merchant and of an Irish lady named Maher. The name Dhanis is supposed to be a variation of D'Anvers. Having completed his education at the École Militaire he entered the Belgian army, joining the regiment of grenadiers, in which he rose to the rank of major. As soon as he reached the rank of lieutenant he volunteered for service on the Congo, and in 1887 he went out for a first term. He did so well in founding new stations north of the Congo that, when the government decided to put an end to the Arab domination on the Upper Congo, he was selected to command the chief expedition sent against the slave dealers. The campaign began in April 1892, and it was not brought to a successful conclusion till January 1894. The story of this war has been told in detail by Dr Sydney Hinde, who took part in it, in his book _The Fall of the Congo Arabs_. The principal achievements of the campaign were the captures in succession of the three Arab strongholds at Nyangwe, Kassongo and Kabambari. For his services Dhanis was raised to the rank of baron, and in 1895 was made vice-governor of the Congo State. In 1896 he took command of an expedition to the Upper Nile. His troops, largely composed of the Batetela tribes who had only been recently enlisted, and who had been irritated by the execution of some of their chiefs for indulging their cannibal proclivities, mutinied and murdered many of their white officers. Dhanis found himself confronted with a more formidable adversary than even the Arabs in these well-armed and half-disciplined mercenaries. During two years (1897-1898) he was constantly engaged in a life-and-death struggle with them. Eventually he succeeded in breaking up the several bands formed out of his mutinous soldiers. Although the incidents of the Batetela operations were less striking than those of the Arab war, many students of both think that the Belgian leader displayed the greater ability and fortitude in bringing them to a successful issue. In 1899 Baron Dhanis returned to Belgium with the honorary rank of vice governor-general. He died on the 14th of November 1909. 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 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 at Dhar. In 1742 Anand Rao received Dhar as a fief from Baji Rao, the peshwa, 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 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 subordinate 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 of Bairusia, which was granted to the begum of Bhopal. Anand Rao, who received the personal title Maharaja and the K.C.S.I. in 1877, 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 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 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 13th 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.[1] 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 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 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 library, 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 II., who transferred his headquarters hither from Ujjain at the close of the 9th century. During the rule of the Paramara dynasty Dhar was famous 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 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 1730, when it was conquered by the Mahrattas. See _Imperial Gazetteer of India_ (Oxford, 1908). [1] Nizam-ud-din, whose beautiful marble tomb is at Indarpat near Delhi, was, according to some authorities, an assassin of the secret society of Khorasan. By some modern authorities he is supposed to have been the founder of Thuggism, the Thugs having a special reverence for his memory. DHARAMPUR, a native state of India, in the Surat political agency division of Bombay, with an area of 704 sq. m. The population in 1901 was 100,430, being a decrease of 17% during the decade; the estimated gross revenue is £25,412; and the tribute £600. Its chief is a Sesodia Rajput. The state has been surveyed for land revenue on the Bombay system. It contains one town, Dharampur (pop. in 1901, 63,449), and 272 villages. Only a small part of the state, the climate of which is very unhealthy, is capable of cultivation; the rest is covered with rocky hills, forest and brushwood. DHARMSALA, a hill-station and sanatorium of the Punjab, India, situated on a spur of the Dhaola Dhar, 16 m. N.E. of Kangra town, at an elevation of some 6000 ft. Pop. (1901) 6971. The scenery of Dharmsala is of peculiar grandeur. The spur on which it stands is thickly wooded with oak and other trees; behind it the pine-clad slopes of the mountain tower towards the jagged peaks of the higher range, snow-clad for half the year; while below stretches the luxuriant cultivation of the Kangra valley. In 1855 Dharmsala was made the headquarters of the Kangra district of the Punjab in place of Kangra, and became the centre of a European settlement and cantonment, largely occupied by Gurkha regiments. The station was destroyed by the earthquake of April 1905, in which 1625 persons, including 25 Europeans and 112 of the Gurkha garrison, perished (_Imperial Gazetteer of India_, 1908). DHARWAR, a town and district of British India, in the southern division of Bombay. The town has a station on the Southern Mahratta railway. The population in 1901 was 31,279. It has several ginning factories and a cotton-mill; two high schools, one maintained by the Government and the other by the Basel German Mission. The DISTRICT OF DHARWAR has an area of 4602 sq. m. In the north and north-east are great plains of black soil, favourable to cotton-growing; in the south and west are successive ranges of low hills, with flat fertile valleys between them. The whole district lies high and has no large rivers. In 1901 the population was 1,113,298, showing an increase of 6% in the decade. The most influential classes of the community are Brahmans and Lingayats. The Lingayats number 436,968, or 46% of the Hindu population; they worship the symbol of Siva, and males and females both carry this emblem about their person in a silver case. The principal crops are millets, pulse and cotton. The centres of the cotton trade are Hubli and Gadag, junctions on the Southern Mahratta railway, which traverses the district in several directions. The early history of the territory comprised within the district of Dharwar has been to a certain extent reconstructed from the inscription slabs and memorial stones which abound there. From these it is clear that the country fell in turn under the sway of the various dynasties that ruled in the Deccan, memorials of the Chalukyan dynasty, whether temples or inscriptions, being especially abundant. In the 14th century the district was first overrun by the Mahommedans, after which it was annexed to the newly established Hindu kingdom of Vijayanagar, an official of which named Dhar Rao, according to local tradition, built the fort at Dharwar town in 1403. After the defeat of the king of Vijayanagar at Talikot (1565), Dharwar was for a few years practically independent under its Hindu governor; but in 1573 the fort was captured by the sultan of Bijapur, and Dharwar was annexed to his dominions. In 1685 the fort was taken by the emperor Aurangzeb, and Dharwar, on the break-up of the Mogul empire, fell under the sway of the peshwa of Poona. In 1764 the province was overrun by Hyder Ali of Mysore, who in 1778 captured the fort of Dharwar. This was retaken in 1791 by the Mahrattas. On the final overthrow of the peshwa in 1817, Dharwar was incorporated with the territory of the East India Company. DHOLPUR, a native state of India, in the Rajputana agency, with an area of 1155 sq. m. It is a crop-producing country, without any special manufactures. All along the bank of the river Chambal the country is deeply intersected by ravines; low ranges of hills in the western portion of the state supply inexhaustible quarries of fine-grained and easily-worked red sandstone. In 1901 the population of Dholpur was 270,973, showing a decrease of 3% in the decade. The estimated revenue is £83,000. The state is crossed by the Indian Midland railway from Jhansi to Agra. In recent years it has suffered severely from drought. In 1896-1897 the expenditure on famine relief amounted to £8190. The town of Dholpur is 34 m. S. of Agra by rail. Pop. (1901) 19,310. The present town, which dates from the 16th century, stands somewhat to the north of the site of the older Hindu town built, it is supposed, in the 11th century by the Tonwar Rajput Raja Dholan (or Dhawal) Deo, and named after him Dholdera or Dhawalpuri. Among the objects of interest in the town may be mentioned the fortified _sarai_ built in the reign of Akbar, within which is the fine tomb of Sadik Mahommed Khan (d. 1595), one of his generals. The town, from its position on the railway, is growing in importance as a centre of trade. Little is known of the early history of the country forming the state of Dholpur. Local tradition affirms that it was ruled by the Tonwar Rajputs, who had their seat at Delhi from the 8th to the 12th century. In 1450 it had a raja of its own; but in 1501 the fort of Dholpur was taken by the Mahommedans under Sikandar Lodi and in 1504 was transferred to a Mussulman governor. In 1527, after a strenuous resistance, the fort was captured by Baber and with the surrounding country passed under the sway of the Moguls, being included by Akbar in the province of Agra. During the dissensions which followed the death of Aurangzeb in 1707, Raja Kalyan Singh Bhadauria obtained possession of Dholpur, and his family retained it till 1761, after which it was taken successively by the Jat raja, Suraj Mal of Bharatpur, by Mirza Najaf Khan in 1775, by Sindhia in 1782, and in 1803 by the British. It was restored to Sindhia by the treaty of Sarji Anjangaon, but in consequence of new arrangements was again occupied by the British. Finally, in 1806, the territories of Dholpur, Bari and Rajakhera were handed over to the maharaj rana Kirat Singh, ancestor of the present chiefs of Dholpur, in exchange for his state of Gohad, which was ceded to Sindhia. The maharaj rana of Dholpur belongs to the clan of Bamraolia Jats, who are believed to have formed a portion of the Indo-Scythian wave of invasion which swept over northern India about A.D. 100. An ancestor of the family appears to have held certain territories at Bamraoli near Agra c. 1195. His descendant in 1505, Singhan Deo, having distinguished himself in an expedition against the freebooters of the Deccan, was rewarded by the sovereignty of the small territory of Gohad, with the title of _rana_. In 1779 the rana of Gohad joined the British forces against Sindhia, under a treaty which stipulated that, at the conclusion of peace between the English and Mahrattas, all the territories then in his possession should be guaranteed to him, and protected from invasion by Sindhia. This protection was subsequently withdrawn, the rana having been guilty of treachery, and in 1783 Sindhia succeeded in recapturing the fortress of Gwalior, and crushed his Jat opponent by seizing the whole of Gohad. In 1804, however, the family were restored to Gohad by the British government; but, owing to the opposition of Sindhia, the rana agreed in 1805 to exchange Gohad for his present territory of Dholpur, which was taken under British protection, the chief binding himself to act in subordinate co-operation with the paramount power, and to refer all disputes with neighbouring princes to the British government. Kirat Singh, the first maharaj rana of Dholpur, was succeeded in 1836 by his son Bhagwant Singh, who showed great loyalty during the Mutiny of 1857, was created a K.C.S.I., and G.C.S.I. in 1869. He was succeeded in 1873 by his grandson Nihal Singh, who received the C.B. and frontier medal for services in the Tirah campaign. He died in 1901, and was succeeded by his eldest son Ram Singh (b. 1883). See _Imperial Gazetteer of India_ (Oxford, 1908) and authorities there given. DHOW, the name given to a type of vessel used throughout the Arabian Sea. The language to which the word belongs is unknown. According to the _New English Dictionary_ the place of origin may be the Persian Gulf, assuming that the word is identical with the tava mentioned by Athanasius Nikitin (_India in the 15th Century_, Hakluyt Society, 1858). Though the word is used generally of any craft along the East African coast, it is usually applied to the vessel of about 150 to 200 tons burden with a stem rising with a long slope from the water; dhows generally have one mast with a lateen sail, the yard being of enormous length. Much of the coasting trade of the Red Sea and Persian Gulf is carried on by these vessels. They were the regular vessels employed in the slave trade from the east coast of Africa. DHRANGADRA, a native state of India, in the Gujarat division of Bombay, situated in the north of the peninsula of Kathiawar. Its area is 1156 sq. m. Pop. (1901) 70,880. The estimated gross revenue is £38,000 and the tribute £3000. A state railway on the metre gauge from Wadhwan to the town of Dhrangadra, a distance of 21 m., was opened for traffic in