Darapur

Darapur or Dārāpur is a village in Jhelum District in the Punjab Province of Pakistan.

Location

It is part of Jhelum Tehsil, and is located at 32°44'0N 73°33'0E with an altitude of 214 metres.

Jat clan

• Dara

People

Most of the population belong to the Janjua , Zai and Ratial tribe.

History

Alexander Cunningham writes The ruined city near Dārāpur, which has been described by Burnes¹ and Court,² is situated on the west bank of the river, 20 miles below Jhelam, and 10 miles above Jalalpur. In their time, the old mound was unoccupied, but about 1832 A.D. the people of Dilawar abandoned their village on a hill to the west, and settled on the site of the ruined city. Before that time, the place was usually called Find, or " the mound," although its true name is said to have been Udamnagar, or Udinagar. The same name is also given by Burnes, but Court, who twice alludes to these ruins, mentions no name, unless he includes them under that of Gagirakhi, the ruins of which he describes as extending along the banks "of the Hydaspes from near Jalalpur to Darapur." According to this account, the ruins would not be less than 6 or 7 miles in length. I think it probable that there has

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1 ' Travels in Panjab, Bokhara, etc.,' ii. 51. 2 Journ. Asiat. Soc. Bengal, 1836, 472, 473.

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[p.162]: been some confusion between two different places, which have here been joined together as one continuous extent of ruins. Girjhāk, which I take to be the original of Court's Gagirakhi, is an old ruined fort on the top of the hill to the north of Jalalpur, to which the people assign a fabulous extent ; but it is at least 8 miles from Darapur, and is, besides, separated from it by the deep Kandar ravine, and by the precipitous range of hills at whose west foot Dilawar is situated. Burnes also describes the old city as extending "for three or four miles." But this is certainly an exaggeration, as I was unable to trace the ruins for more than one mile in length by half a mile in breadth. The ruins consist of two large mounds just half a mile apart, with two smaller mounds about midway between them. The south mound on which Dilawar is situated, is about 500 feet square at top, and 1100 or 1200 feet at base, with a height of 50 or 60 feet. The north mound, on which old Darapur stands, is 600 feet square, and from 20 to 30 feet in height. Between these mounds the fields are covered with broken bricks and pottery, and the whole place is said to be the ruins of a single city. The walls of the Dilawar houses are built of the large old bricks dug out of this mound, which are of two sizes, one of 11½ by 8¼ by 3 inches, and the other of only half this thickness. Old coins are found in great numbers in the Dilawar mound, from which the Jalalpur bazar is said to be supplied, just as Pind Dadan is supplied from the ruins of Jobnathnagar. The coins which I obtained belonged to the first Indo-Scythians, the Kabul-Brahmans, the kings of Kashmir, and the Karluki Hazara chiefs, Hasan and his son Muhammad. The site.

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[p.163]: therefore, must have been occupied certainly as early as the second century before the Christian era. Its foundation is attributed to Raja Bharati, whose age is not known. I conclude, however, that the dominating position of Dilawar, which commands the passage of the Jhelam at the point where the lower road from the west leaves the hills, just below the mouth of the Bunhar river, must have led to its occupation at a very early period.

References

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