SIRKAR TIRHUT

Sirkar Tirhut comprised 84 Parganas covering the greater parts of the districts of Darbhanga and Muzaffarpur. The boundries of the Sirkar in the grant of Mahamahopadhyaya Mahesh Thakur are said to have been " As Ganga to sang--As Kosa to Ghosa," that is, from the Ganges in the south to the mountain in the north---from the river Kosi in the east to the Gandak in the west. This couplet laying down in the Survey settlement Report of the Purnia district.By subsequent grants by the Moghul Emperors about half of Purnia and a portions of Bhagalpur was added to their territories.

The history of the grant to Mahesh Thakur by the Moghul  Emperor is borne out by a piece of contemporary evidence for the recovery of the Sanskrit manuscript from the India office Library discloses on examination by an expert scholar that the book is Akbarnama in sanskrit which Mahamahopadhyaya Mahesh Thakur wrote at the command of the Emperor Akbar detailing the history of Babar and Humayun and Akbar's early life,in direct consultation with the Emperor,and that he had been presented before the Emperor Humayun who gave him "the desired Sanad " and accorded princely honour by kissing his forehead.The dates in the book show that Mahamahopadhyaya Mahesh Thakur reached  the Moghul Court at the restoration of the Moghul Throne.The grant  being dated in the same year as Akbar's accession ,it was evidently obtained a few months before Humayun's death and had really to be confirmed and acted upon only under the next reign.a few years before that the Kameshwar Thakur dynesty had come to an end.and there was an agitation in Mithila that the Hindu Kingdom should be recovered and continued.Mahamahopadhyaya Mahesh Thakur and his brothers had close familiarity with administration having had great influence with the Hindu kings of the Central Provinces,being their spiritual Gurus. Mahesh Thakur's elder brother Mahamahopadhyaya Damodar Thakur, for instance ,composed a law-digest for the administration of justice in the Court of Rani Durgavati, which has come down in a manuscript  in the Library of the Asiatic society of Bengal.Mahamhopadhyaya Mahesh Thakur was considered to be the greatest Sanskrit scholar of Eastern India of his time.Works written by him are celebrated. It appears from The Sanskrit Akbarnama that the Emperor Akbar received support from Mahamahopadhyaya Mahesh Thakur in his peculiar religious views,and that even after the abdication in favour of his son, the scholar -prince passed part of his time at Akbar's Court.

Mahamahopadhyaya Mahesh Thakur thus succeeding to the powers of the Kameshwar dynesty,which had just then become extinct,excercised both temporal and spiritual powers which had been enjoyed by the rulers of Mithila since ancient times.As per the Privy Council pointed out the Zamindars and Taluqdars of Tirhut were responsible to the Raja of Tirhut, that he had his vassals.The Raja of Tirhut alone was responsible to the Supreme Government: he was the ruler and the only ruler of Tirhut whom the people saw and knew, they-- the Zamindars and Taluqdars--- having nothing to do with the Emperor while under the Rajas of Tirhut until the assumption of dominion by the East India Company.

The employment of the royal " fish" insignia was permitted only to the ruling houses.the old title " the Raja

to Tirhut " used up to 1851 in the Sanad of Maharaja Maheswara Singh Bhadur.All the Ruler up to the the time prior to Late Laxmishewar Singh were known as Rajas Of Tirhut although the residence of the Royal family had been removed to Darbhanga much before.