BURHÄNPUR, a town of British India in the Nimâr district of the Central Provinces, situated on the north bank of the River Tapti, in 21° 8Γ N. lat. and 76° 20' E. long., at a distance of 280 miles N.E. of Bombay, and 2 miles from the Great Indian Peninsula Railway station of Lâlbâgh. It was founded in 1400 a.d. by a Mahometan prince of the Farukhi dynasty of Khandesh, whose successors held it for 200 years, when the Farukhi kingdom was annexed to the empire of Akbar. It formed the chief seat of the Government of the Deccan provinces of the Mughul empire till Shâh Jahân removed the capital to Aurangâbâd, in 1635. Burhânpur was plundered in 1685 by the Marhattâs, and repeated battles were fought in its neighbourhood in the struggle betweeen that race and the Musalmâns for the supremacy of India. In 1739 the Mahometans finally yielded to the demand of the Marhattâs for a fourth of the revenue, and in 1760 the Nizâm of the Deccan ceded Burhânpur to the Peshwâ, who in 1778 transferred it to Sindhiâ. In the Marhattâ war the army under General Wellesley, afterwards the duke of Wellington, took Burhânpur (1803), but the treaty of the following year restored it to Sindhiâ. It remained a portion of Sindhiâ’s dominions till 1860-61, when, in consequence of certain territorial arrangements, the town and surrounding estates were ceded to the British Government. Under the Mughuls the city covered an area of about 5 square miles, and was about 10⅜ miles in circumference. In the “Ain-f-Akbari” it is described as a “large city, with many gardens, inhabited by all nations, and abounding with handicraftsmen.” Sir Thomas Roe, who visited it in 1614, found that the houses in the town were “only mud cottages, except the prince’s house, the chan’s, and ...