Alakhgir, Alakhnâmi, Alakhiya.—A Saiva sect said to have been founded by a Chamâr, named Lâlgir. They are so called because when they beg they cry Alakh! Alakh! “the invisible God” (Sans. Alakshya). They wear usually a blanket cloak hanging down to their heels, and a high conical cap. They come to a man’s door and raise their characteristic cry. If their request is granted, they will accept alms: otherwise they go away at once. They are considered a quiet, harmless, begging class. They are generally classed among Jogis. The rule of their founder was that charity was to be practised, the taking of life and use of meat as food forbidden, and asceticism encouraged. The sole rewards he held out to his followers in this life were the attainment of purity, untroubled contemplation, and serenity. There was no future state: heaven and hell (that is, happiness and misery), were within. All perishes with the body, which is finally dissolved into the elements, and man cannot gain immortality. Amethiya.—A sept of Râjputs who take their name from Amethi, a Pargana in the Lucknow District. Sir H. M. Elliot calls them Chauhân Râjputs of the Bandhalgoti sept, of whom a few have settled in Salempur Majhauli of Gorakhpur. But Mr. W. C. Benett [159] gives a different account of them. According to him, “This tribe of Chhatris are a branch of the Chamar Gaur, and are said to be the descendants of a pregnant Gaur widow, who, at the extirpation of the Chhatris by the Brâhmans, found an asylum in a Chamâr’s hut. The memory of this humble refuge is kept alive among them by the worship of the cobbler’s cutting tool (rânpi). Great numbers of the Chamar Gaurs now hold villages in the Hardoi District, and it is probable that the Amethiyas were an offshoot of the same immigration. Tradition first discovers them at Siupuri and afterwards at the celebrated fortress of Kalinjar. Somewhere about the time of the invasion of India by Tamurlane, Râê Pâl Sinh left Kalinjar and settled at Amethi, in the Lucknow District. His descendants say that he was sent by the Delhi Emperor to suppress a rebellion in Oudh, and that he defeated and slew Balbhadra Sena Bisen with sixteen thousand of his host. The figures are slightly improbable, and my enquiries have failed to bring to light a Bisen Râja of that name. Râê Pâl was wounded in the shoulder by a musket shot, and recompensed by a dress of honour and the title of Râja of Amethi. Three or four generations after this, three brothers—Dingur Sâh, Râm Sinh, and Lohang, led the clan from Amethi to Jagdîspur, and came in contact with the Muhammadans: the engagement resulted in the defeat of the Shaikhs, and the occupation of their villages by the invaders. There is every reason to believe that this occurred towards the end of the fifteenth century, and was part of the general re-assertion of Hindu supremacy in Oudh, consequent on the fall of the Jaunpur dynasty, a re-action whose central event was the establishment of the Bais kingdom.” The