ABSTRACT
In Purneah Tíyars worship a peculiar deity, called Prem Rájah, or Pamiráj, who they say belonged to their tribe, and was a celebrated brigand residing at Bahurágar in Tirhut. Having been on many occasions favoured by the deity, he was translated (Apraká _sa), and disappeared along with his boat. In 1864, one Baijua Tíyar gave out that Pamiraj had appeared to him in a vision, and ordained that the Tíyars should cease to be fishermen, and devote themselves instead to certain religious rites which would procure general prosperity. Great excitement ensued, and in February 1865, about four thousand Tíyars from Gházipúr, Benares, and the adjoining districts, assembled at Gogra in Purneah, and after offering holy water to a private idol belonging to Baijua, which he said came to him out of a bamboo post, 3,000 goats were sacrificed. Shortly afterwards another meeting of the tribe was held in the Benares district, at which a murder was committed. This movement was a repetition of a precisely similar one among the Dosáds of Bihár, in 1863, and, like it, was short-lived and unsuccessful.182
