Bisen.—A powerful sept of Râjputs found in considerable numbers in the Allahâbâd, Benares, Gorakhpur, and Faizâbâd Divisions. The head of the sept is the Râja of Majhauli, in Pargana Salempur Majhauli, of Gorakhpur. They as well as the Donwâr (q.v.) claim descent from one Mayûra Bhatta, who is said to have been a descendant of Jamadagni Rishi of the race of Bhrigu. Regarding this personage the local tradition is very vague. Some say he came from Hastinapur and was the son of one Aswathâma; others that he was an emigrant from Mahârâshtra or the Marhatta country. He read Sanskrit for a while at Benares, and became a proficient in astrology. Quitting that city at last under a divine impulse he settled at Kakradih, a village in Pargana Sikandarpur, of Azamgarh. The whole of that Pargana came gradually under his authority. His domestic arrangements illustrate a period when the bonds of caste, as we know them, were unknown. He is said to have had three wives,—first a Brâhmani named Nâgseni; the second Sûrajprabha, a Sûrajbans Râjputni; the third Haikumâri, a Gautam Bhuînhârin. By his wife Sûrajprabha he had a son, Biswa or Bissu Sen, who was the ancestor of the Bisen sept of Chhatris; by Haikumâri, Balkal or Bagmar Sahi, the ancestor of the Bhuînhâr families of Kuwâri and Tamkûhi; by Nâgseni, Nages, Nagesar or Nâgsen; and by a Kurmin concubine Indradawwan Mal, from whom sprang the Mals of Azamgarh, of whom a separate account will be given. He expelled the Bhars, and finally went on a pilgrimage to the Himâlaya, where he died. There are thus a family of Misr Brâhmans, and a large half Kurmi clan which claim common descent with the Majhauli Bisen family.