Potsdam. Some of these were historical pieces, but the majority were representations of Scriptural incidents. Begas was also celebrated as a portrait-painter, and supplied to the royal gallery a long series of portraits of eminent Prussian men of letters. At his death he held the post of court painter at Berlin. His son OSKAR (1828-1883) was also a painter and professor of painting at Berlin. REINHOLD, the sculptor, is noticed below. BEGAS, REINHOLD (1831- ), German sculptor, younger son of Karl Begas, the painter, was born at Berlin on the 15th of July 1831. He received his early education (1846-1851) in the ateliers of C. D. Rauch and L. Wic...nann. During a period of study in Italy, from 1856 to 1858, he was influenced by Böcklin and Lenbach in the direction of a naturalistic style in sculpture. This tendency was marked in the group "Borussia," executed for the façade of the exchange in Berlin, which first brought him into general notice. In 1861 he was appointed professor at the art school at Weimar, but retained the appointment only a few months. That he was chosen, after competition, to execute the statue of Schiller for the Gendarmen Markt in Berlin, was a high tribute to the fame he had already acquired; and the result, one of the finest statues in the German metropolis, entirely justified his selection. Since the year 1870, Begas has entirely dominated the plastic art in Prussia, but especially in Berlin. Among his chief works during this period are the colossal statue of Borussia for the Hall of Glory; the Neptune fountain in bronze on the Schlossplatz; the statue of Alexander von Humboldt, all in Berlin; the sarcophagus of the emperor Frederick III. in the mausoleum of the Friedenskirche at Potsdam; and, lastly, the national monument to the emperor William (see BERLIN), the statue of Bismarck before the Reichstag building, and several of the statues in the Siegesallee. He was also entrusted with the execution of the sarcophagus of the empress Frederick. See A. G. Meyer, "Reinhold Begas" in Künstler-Monographien, ed. H. Knackfuss, Heft xx. (Bielefeld, 1897; new ed., 1901). BEGGAR, one who begs, particularly one who gains his living by asking the charitable contributions of others. The word, with the verbal form "to beg," in Middle English beggen, is of obscure history. The words appear first in English in the 13th century, and were early connected with "bag," with reference to the receptacle for alms carried by the beggars. The most probable derivation of the word, and that now generally accepted, is that it is a corruption of the name of the lay communities known as Beguines and Beghards, which, shortly after their establishment, followed the friars in the practice of mendicancy (see BEGUINES). It has been suggested, however, that the origin of "beg" and "beggars" is to be found in a rare Old English word, bedecian, of the same meaning, which is apparently connected with the Gothic bidjan, cf. German belleln; but between the occurrence of bedecian at the end of the 9th century and the appearance of "beggar" and "beg" in the 13th, there is a blank, and no explanation can be given of the great change in form. For the English law relating to begging and its history, see CHARITY, POOR LAW and VAGRANCY. BEGGAR-MY-NEIGHBOUR, a simple card-game. An ordinary pack is divided equally between two players, and the cards are held with the backs upwards. The first player lays down his top card face up, and the opponent plays his top card on it, and this goes on alternately as long as no court-card appears; but if either player turns up a court-card, his opponent has to play four ordinary cards to an ace, three to a king, two to a queen, one to a knave, and when he has done so the other player takes all the cards on the table and places them under his pack; if, however, in the course of this playing to a court-card, another court-card turns up, the adversary has in turn to play to this, and as long as neither has played a full number of ordinary cards to any court-card the trick continues. The player who gets all the cards into his hand is the winner. BEGONIA (named from M. Begon, a French patron of botany), a large genus (natural order, Begoniaceae) of succulent herbs or undershrubs, with about three hundred and fifty species in tropical moist climates, especially South America and India. About one hundred and fifty species are known in cultivation, and innumerable varieties and hybrid forms. Many are tuberous. The flowers are usually showy and large, white, rose, scarlet or yellow in colour; they are unisexual, the male containing numerous stamens, the female having a large inferior ovary and two to four branched or twisted stigmas. The fruit is a winged capsule containing numerous minute seeds. The leaves, which are often large and variegated, are unequal-sided. Cuttings from flowering begonias root freely in sandy soil, if placed in heat at any season when moderately firm; as soon as rooted, they should be potted singly into 3-in. pots, in sandy loam mixed with leaf-mould and sand. They should be stopped to keep them bushy, placed in a light situation, and thinly shaded in the middle of very bright days. In a few weeks they will require another shift. They should not be overpotted, but instead assisted by manure water. The pots should be placed in a light pit near the roof glass. The summer-flowering kinds will soon begin blooming, but the autumn and winter flowering sorts should be kept growing on in a temperature of from 55° to 60° by night, with a few degrees more in the day. The tuberousrooted sorts require to be kept at rest in winter, in a medium temperature, almost but not quite dry. In February they should be potted in a compost of sandy loam and leaf-mould, and placed in a temperate pit until May or June, when they may be moved to the greenhouse for flowering. If they afterwards get at all pot-bound, weak manure should be applied. After blooming, the supply of water must be again slackened; in winter the plants should be stored in a dry place secure from frost; they are increased by late summer and autumn cuttings, after being partially cut down. BEGUINES (Fr. béguine, Med. Lat. beguina, begina, begkina), at the present time the name of the members of certain lay sisterhoods established in the Netherlands and Germany, the enclosed district within which they live being known as a beguinage (Lat. beginagium). The equivalent male communities, called also Beguines (Fr. béguins, Lat. beguini), but more usually Beghards (Lat. baghardi, beggardi, begchardi, &c., O. Fr. bégard-i, Flem. beggaert), have long ceased to exist. The origin of the names Beguine and Beghard has been the subject of much controversy. In the 15th century a legend arose that both name and organization were traceable to St Begga, daughter of Pippin of Landen, who consequently in 1630 was chosen by the Beguines as the patron saint of their association. In 1630 a professor of Louvain, Erycius Puteanus (van Putte), published a treatise, De Begginarum apud Belgas instituto et nomine suffragium, in which he produced three documents purporting to date from the 11th and 12th centuries, which seemed conclusively to prove that the Beguines existed long before Lambert le Bègue. For two centuries these were accepted as genuine and are admitted as such even in the monumental work of Mosheim. In 1843, however, they were conclusively proved by the German scholar Hallmann, from internal evidence, to be forgeries of the 14th and 15th centuries. It is now universally admitted that both the institution and the name of the Beguines are derived from Lambert le Bègue, who died about the year 1187. The confusion caused by the spuricus documents of Puteanus, however, led, even when the legend of St Begga was rejected, to other sugges tions for the derivation of the name, e.g. from an imaginary old Saxon word beggen, "to beg" or pray," an explanation adopted even by Mosheim, or from bègue, "stammering," a French word of unknown origin, which only brings us back to Lambert again, whose name of Le Bègue, as the chronicler Aegidius, a monk of Orval (Aureae Vallis), tells us, simply means "the stammerer," quia balbus erat (Gesta pontificum Leodiensium, c. A.D. 1251). Doubtless this coincidence gave a ready handle to the scoffing wits of the time, and among the numerous popular names given to the Beghards—bons garçons, boni pueri, boni valeti and the like-we find also that of Lollards (from Flemish löllen, "to stammer"). About the year 1170 Lambert le Bègue, a priest of Liége, who had devoted his fortune to founding the hospital and church of St Christopher for the widows and children of crusaders, conceived the idea of establishing an association of women, who, without taking the monastic vows, should devote themselves | their living by weaving and the like, and appear to have been in to a life of religion. The effect of his preaching was immense, and intimate connexion with the craft-gilds; but under the influence large numbers of women, many of them left desolate by the loss of the mendicant movement of the 13th century these tended of their husbands on crusade, came under the influence of a to break up, and, though certain of the male beguinages survived movement which was attended with all the manifestations of or were incorporated as tertiaries in the orders of friars, the name what is now called a "revival.” About the year 1180 Lambert of Beghard became associated with groups of wandering mendigathered some of these women, who had been ironically styled cants who made religion a cloak for living on charity; béguigner "Beguines" by his opponents, into a semi-conventual com- becoming in the French language of the time synonymous with munity, which he established in a quarter of the city belonging" to beg." and beghard with "beggar," a word which, according to him around his church of St Christopher. The district was to the latest authorities, was probably imported into England surrounded by a wall within which the Beguines lived in separate in the 13th century from this source (see BEGGAR). More serious small houses, subject to no rule save the obligation of good still, from the point of view of the Church, was the association of works, and of chastity so long as they remained members of the these wandering mendicants with the mystic heresies of the community. After Lambert's death (c. 1187?) the movement Fraticelli, the Apostolici and the pantheistic Brethren of the rapidly spread, first in the Netherlands and afterwards in France Free Spirit. The situation was embittered by the hatred of the -where it was encouraged by the saintly Louis IX.-Germany, secular clergy for the friars, with whom the Beguines were Switzerland and the countries beyond. Everywhere the com- associated. Restrictions were placed upon them by the synod munity was modelled on the type established at Liége. It of Fritzlar (1269), by that of Mainz (1281) and Eichstätt (1281), constituted a little city within the city, with separate houses, and by the synod of Béziers (1299) they were absolutely forand usually a church, hospital and guest-house, the whole being bidden. They were again condemned by a synod held at Cologne under the government of a mistress (magistra). Women of all in 1306; and at the synod of Trier in 1310 a decree was passed classes were admitted; and, though there was no rule of poverty, against those "who under a pretext of feigned religion call many wealthy women devoted their riches to the common cause. themselves Beghards . . . and, hating manual labour, go about The Beguines did not beg; and, when the endowments of the begging, holding conventicles and posing among simple people community were not sufficient, the poorer members had to support as interpreters of the Scriptures." Matters came to a climax at themselves by manual work, sick-nursing and the like. the council of Vienne in 1311 under Pope Clement V., where the "sect of Beguines and Beghards" were accused of being the main instruments of the spread of heresy, and decrees were passed suppressing their organization and demanding their severe punishment. The decrees were put into execution by Pope John XXII., and a persecution raged in which, though the pope expressly protected the female Beguine communities of the Netherlands, there was little discrimination between the orthodox and unorthodox Beguines. This led to the utmost confusion, the laity in many cases taking the part of the Beguine com the secular authorities. In these circumstances the persecution died down; it was, however, again resumed between 1366 and 1378 by Popes Urban V. and Gregory XI., and the Beguines were not formally reinstated until the pontificate of Eugenius IV. (1431-1447). The male communities did not survive the 14th century, even in the Netherlands, where they had maintained their original character least impaired. The Beguine communities were fruitful soil for the missionary enterprise of the friars, and in the course of the 13th century the communities in France, Germany and upper Italy had fallen under the influence of the Dominicans and Franciscans to such an extent that in the Latin-speaking countries the tertiaries of these orders were commonly called beguini and beguinae. The very looseness of their organization, indeed, made it inevitable that the Beguine associations should follow very diverse developments. Some of them retained their original character; others fell completely under the dominion of the friars, and were ulti-munities, and the Church being thus brought into conflict with mately converted into houses of Dominican, Franciscan or Augustinian tertiaries; others again fell under the influence of the mystic movements of the 13th century, turned in increasing numbers from work to mendicancy (as being nearer the Christ-life), practised the most cruel self-tortures, and lapsed into extravagant heresies that called down upon them the condemnation of popes and councils. All this tended to lower the reputation of the Beguines. During the 14th century, indeed, numerous new beguinages were established; but ladies of rank and wealth ceased to enter them, and they tended to become more and more mere almshouses for poor women. By the 15th century in many cases they had utterly sunk in reputation, their obligation to nurse the sick was quite neglected, and they had, rightly or wrongly, acquired the reputation of being mere nests of beggars and women of ill fame. At the Reformation the communities were suppressed in Protestant countries, but in some Catholic countries they still survive. The beguinages found here and there in Germany are now simply almshouses for poor spinsters, those in Holland (e.g. at Amsterdam and Breda) and Belgium preserve more faithfully the characteristics of earlier days. The beguinage of St Elizabeth at Ghent has some thousand sisters, and occupies quite a distinct quarter of the city, being surrounded by a wall and moat. The Beguines wear the old Flemish head-dress and a dark costume, and are conspicuous for their kindness among the poor and their sick nursing. It is uncertain whether the parallel communities of men originated also with Lambert le Bègue. The first records are of communities at Louvain in 1220 and at Antwerp in 1228. The history of the male communities is to a certain extent parallel with the female, but they were never so numerous and their degeneration was far more rapid. The earliest Flemish Beghard communities were associations mainly of artisans who earned 1 In the year 1287 the council of Liége decreed that "all Beguinae desiring to enjoy the Beguine privileges shall enter a Beguinage, and we order that all who remain outside the Beguinage shall wear a dress to distinguish them from the Beguinae." See J. L. von Mosheim, De beghardis et beguinabus commentarius (Leipzig, 1790); E. Hallmann, Die Geschichte des Ursprungs der belgischen Beghinen (Berlin, 1843); J. C. L. Gieseler, Eccles. Hist. (vol. iii., Eng. trans., Edinburgh, 1853), with useful excerpts from documents; Du Cange, Glossarium; Herzog-Hauck, Realencyklopädie (3rd ed., 1897) s. Beginen," by Herman Haupt, where numerous further authorities are cited. (W. A. P.) BEHAIM (or BEHEM), MARTIN (1436?-1507), a navigator and geographer of great pretensions, was born at Nuremberg, according to one tradition, about 1436; according to Ghillany, as late as 1459. He was drawn to Portugal by participation in Flanders trade, and acquired a scientific reputation at the court of John II. As a pupil, real or supposed, of the astronomer 'Regiomontanus" (i.c. Johann Müller of Königsberg in Franconia) he became (c. 1480) a member of a council appointed by King John for the furtherance of navigation. His alleged introduction of the cross-staff into Portugal (an invention described by the Spanish Jew, Levi ben Gerson, in the 14th century) is a matter of controversy; his improvements in the astrolabe were perhaps limited to the introduction of handy brass instruments in place of cumbrous wooden ones; it seems likely that he helped to prepare better navigation tables than had yet been known in the Peninsula. In 1484-1485 he claimed to have accompanied Diogo Cão in his second expedition to West Africa, really undertaken in 1485-86, reaching Cabo Negro in 15°40′ S. and Cabo Ledo still farther on. It is now disputed whether that instead of sharing in this great voyage of discovery, the Behaim's pretensions here deserve any belief; and it is suggested Nuremberger only sailed to the nearer coasts of Guinea, perhaps as far as the Bight of Benin, and possibly with José Visinho the astronomer and with João Affonso d'Aveiro, in 1484-86. Martin's later history, as traditionally recorded, was as follows. On his return from his West African exploration to Lisbon he was knighted by King John, who afterwards employed him in various capacities; but, from the time of his marriage in 1486, he usually resided at Fayal in the Azores, where his father-in-law, Jobst van Huerter, was governor of a Flemish colony. On a visit to his native city in 1492, he constructed his famous terrestrial globe, still preserved in Nuremberg, and often reproduced, in which the influence of Ptolemy is strongly apparent, but wherein some attempt is also made to incorporate the discoveries of the later middle ages (Marco Polo, &c.). The antiquity of this globe and the year of its execution, on the eve of the discovery of America, are noteworthy; but as a scientific work it is unimportant, ranking far below the portolani charts of the 14th century. Its West Africa is marvellously incorrect; the Cape Verde archipelago lics hundreds of miles out of its proper place; and the Atlantic is filled with fabulous islands. Blunders of 16° are found in the localization of places the author claims to have visited: contemporary maps, at least in regard to continental features, seldom went wrong beyond 1°. It is generally agreed that Behaim had no share in Transatlantic discovery; and though Columbus and he were apparently in Portugal at the same time, no connexion between the two has been established. He died at Lisbon in 1507. See C. G. von Murr, Diplomatische Geschichte des berühmten Ritters Behaim (1778); A. von Humboldt, Kritische Untersuchungen (1836); F. W. Ghillany, Geschichte des Seefahrers Martin Behaim (1853); O. Peschel, Geschichte der Erdkunde, 214-215, 226, 251, and Zeitalter der Entdeckungen, esp. p. 90; Breusing, Zur Geschichte der Geographie (1869); Eugen Gelcich in the Mittheilungen of the Vienna Geographical Society, vol. xxxvi. pp. 100, &c.; E. G. Ravenstein, Martin de Bohemia (Lisbon, 1900), Martin Behaim, His Life and His Globe (London, 1909), and Voyages of Diogo Cão and Bartholomeu Dias, 1482-1488, in Geographical Journal, Dec. 1900; see also Geog. Journal, Aug. 1893, p. 175. Nov. 1901, p. 509; Jules Mees in Bull. Soc, Geog., Antwerp, 1902, pp. 182-204; A. Ferreira de Serpa in Bull. Soc. Geog., Lisbon, 1904, pp. 297-307. (C. R. B.) BEHAR, or BIHAR, a town of British India, in the Patna district of Bengal, which gives its name to an old province, situated on the right bank of the river Panchana. Pop. (1901) 45,063. There are still some manufactures of silk and muslin, but trade has deserted Behar in favour of Patna and other places more favourably situated on the river Ganges and the railway, while the indigo industry has been ruined by the synthetic products of the German chemist, and the English colony of indigo planters has been scattered abroad. The old province, stretching widely across the valley of the Ganges from the frontier of Nepal to the hills of Chota Nagpur, corresponds to the two administrative divisions of Patna and Bhagalpur, with a total area of 44,197 sq.m. and a population of 24,241,305. It is the most densely populated tract in India, and therefore always liable to famine; but it is now well protected almost everywhere by railways. It is a country of large landholders and formerly of indigo planters. The vernacular language is not Bengali, but a dialect of Hindu; and the people likewise resemble those of Upper India. The general aspect of the country is flat, except in the district of Monghyr, where detached hills occur, and in the south-east of the province, where the Rajmahal and Santal ranges abut upon the plains. Behar abounds in great rivers, such as the Ganges, with its tributaries, the Ghagra, Gandak, Kusi, Mahananda and Sone. The Ganges enters the province near the town of Buxar, flows castward and, passing the towns of Dinajpur, Patna, Monghyr and Colgong, leaves the province at Rajmahal. It divides the province into two almost equal portions; north of the river lie the districts of Saran, Champaran, Tirhoot, Purnea, and part of Monghyr and Bhagalpur, and south of it are Shahabad, Patna, Gaya, the Santal parganas, and the rest of Monghyr and Bhagalpur. The Ganges and its northern tributaries are navigable by country boats of large burden all the year round. The cultivation of opium is a government monopoly, and no person is allowed to grow the poppy except on account of government. The Behar Opium Agency has its headquarters at the town of Patna. Annual engagements are entered into by the cultivators, under a system of pecuniary advances, to sow a certain quantity of land with poppy, and the whole produce in the form of opium is delivered to government at a fixed rate. Saltpetre is largely refined in Tirhoot, Saran and Champaran, and is exported both by rail and river to Calcutta. The manufactures of less importance are tussore-silk, paper, blankets, brass utensils, firearms, carpets, coarse cutlery and hardware, leather, ornaments of gold and silver, &c. Of minerals-lead, silver and copper exist in the Bhagalpur division, but the mines are not worked. One coal-mine is worked in the parganas. Before the construction of railways in India, the Ganges and the Grand Trunk road afforded the sole means of communication from Calcutta to the North-Western Provinces. But now the railroad is the great highway which connects Upper India with Lower Bengal. The East Indian railway runs throughout the length of the province. The climate of Behar is very hot from the middle of March to the end of June, when the rains set in, which continue till the end of September. The cold season, from October to the first half of March, is the pleasantest time of the year. History. The province of Behar corresponds to the ancient kingdom of Magadha, which comprised the country now included in the districts of Patna, Gaya and Shahabad, south of the Ganges. The origin of this kingdom, famous alike in the political and religious history of India, is lost in the mists of antiquity; and though the Brahmanical Puranas give lists of its rulers extending back to remote ages before the Christian era, the first authentic dynasty is that of the Saisunaga, founded by Sisunaga (c. 600 B.C.), whose capital was at Rajagaha (Rajgir) in the hills near Gaya; and the first king of this dynasty of whom anything is known was Bimbisara (c. 528 B.C.), who by conquests and matrimonial alliances laid the foundations of the greatness of the kingdom. It was in the reign of Bimbisara that Vardhamana Mahavira, the founder of Jainism, and Gautama, the founder of Buddhism, preached in Magadha, and Buddhist missionaries issued thence to the conversion of China, Ceylon, Tibet and Tatary. Even to this day Behar, where there are extensive remains of Buddhist buildings, remains a sacred spot in the eyes of the Chinese and other Buddhist nations. Bimbisara was murdered by his son Ajatasatru, who succeeded him, and whose bloodthirsty policy reduced the whole country between the Himalayas and the Ganges under the suzerainty of Magadha. According to tradition, it was his grandson, Udaya, who founded the city of Pataliputra (Patna) on the Ganges, which under the Maurya dynasty became the capital not only of Magadha but of India. The remaining history of the dynasty is obscure; according to Mr Vincent Smith, its last representative was Mahanandin (417 B.C.), after whose death the throne was usurped, under obscure circumstances, by Mahapadma Nanda, a man of low caste (Early Hist. of India, p. 36). It was a son of this usurper who was reigning at the time of the invasion of Alexander the Great; and the conqueror, when his advance was arrested at the Hyphasis (326 B.C.), meditating an attack on Pataliputra (the Palimbothra of the Greeks), was informed that the king of Magadha could oppose him with a force of 20,000 cavalry, 200,000 infantry, 2000 chariots, and 3000 or 4000 elephants. The Nanda dynasty seems to have survived only for two generations, when (321 B.C.) Chandragupta Maurya, the founder of the great Maurya dynasty, seized the throne. This dynasty, of which the history belongs to that of India (9.7.), occupied the throne for 137 years. After the death of the great Buddhist king, Asoka (c. 231), the Maurya empire began to break up, and it was finally destroyed about fifty years later when Pushyamitra Sunga murdered the Maurya king Brihadratha and founded the Sunga dynasty. Descendants of Asoka continued, however, to subsist in Magadha as subordinate rajas for many centuries; and as late as the 8th century A.D. petty Maurya dynasties are mentioned as ruling in Konkan. The reign of Pushyamitra, who held his own against Menander and succeeded in establishing his claim to be lord paramount of northern India, is mainly remarkable as marking the beginning he composed a treatise on The Laws and Discipline of Sacred War, which he presented to Saladin, who received it with peculiar favour. From this time he remained constantly attached to the person of the sultan, and was employed on various embassies and in departments of the civil government. He was appointed judge of the army and judge of Jerusalem. After Saladin's death Beha-ud-Din remained the friend of his son Malik uz-Zahir, who appointed him judge of Aleppo. Here he employed some of his wealth in the foundation of colleges. When Malik uz-Zahir died, his son Malik ul-'Aziz was a minor, and Behā ud-Din had the chief power in the regency. This power he used largely for the patronage of learning. After the abdication of Malik ul-'Aziz, he fell from favour and lived in retirement until his death in 1234. Behā ud-Din's chief work is his Life of Saladin (published at Leiden with Latin translation by A. Schultens in 1732 and 1755). An English translation was published by the Palestine Pilgrims' Text Society, London, 1897. of the Brahmanical reaction and the decline of Buddhism; | was by urging him to its vigorous prosecution. With this view according to certain Buddhist writers the king, besides reviving Hindu rites, indulged in a savage persecution of the monks. The Sunga dynasty, which lasted 112 years, was succeeded by the Kanva dynasty, which after 45 years was overthrown (c. 27 B.C.) by the Andhras or Satavahanas. In A.D. 236 the Andhras were overthrown, and, after a confused and obscure period of about a century, Chandragupta I. established his power at Pataliputra (A.D. 320) and founded the famous Gupta empire (see GUPTA), which survived till it was overthrown by the Ephthalites (q.v.), or White Huns, at the close of the 5th century. In Magadha itself the Guptas continued to rule as tributary princes for some centuries longer. About the middle of the 8th century Magadha was conquered by Gopala, who had made himself master in Bengal, and founded the imperial dynasty known as the Palas of Bengal. They were zealous Buddhists, and under their rule Magadha became once more an active centre of Buddhist influence. Gopala himself built a great monastery at Udandapura, or Otantapuri, which has been identified by Sir Alexander Cunningham with the city of Behar, where the later Pala kings established their capital. Under Mahipala (c. 1026), the ninth of his line, and his successor Nayapala, missionaries from Magadha succeeded in firmly re-establishing Buddhism in Tibet. In the 11th century the Pala empire, which, according to the Tibetan historian Taranath, extended in the 9th century from the Bay of Bengal to Delhi and Jalandhar (Jullundur) in the north and the Vindhyan range in the south, was partly dismembered by the rise of the "Sena " dynasty in Bengal; and at the close of the 12th century both Palas and Senas were swept away by the Mahommedan conquerors, the city of Behar itself being captured by the Turki free-lance Mahommed-i-Bakhtyar Khilji in 1193, by surprise, with a party of 200 horsemen. "It was discovered," says a contemporary Arab historian, "that the whole of that fortress and city was a college, and in the Hindi tongue they call a college Bihar." Most of the monks were massacred in the first heat of the assault; those who survived fled to Tibet, Nepal and the south. Buddhism in Magadha never recovered from this blow it lingered in obscurity for a while and then vanished. Behar now came under the rule of the Mahommedan governors of Bengal. About 1330 the southern part was annexed to Delhi, while north Behar remained for some time longer subject to Bengal. In 1397 the whole of Behar became part of the kingdom of Jaunpur; but a hundred years later it was annexed by the Delhi emperors, by whom-save for a short period-it continued to be held. The capital of the province was established under the Moguls at the city of Behar, which gave its name to the province. From the middle of the 14th to the middle of the 16th century a large part of Behar was ruled by a line of Brahman tributary kings; and in the 15th century another Hindu dynasty ruled in Champaran and Gorakhpur. Behar came into the possession of the East India Company with the acquisition of the Diwani in 1765, when the province was united with Bengal. In 1857 two zemindārs, Umar Singh and Kumar Singh, rebelled against the British government, and for some months held the ruinous fort of Rohtas against the British. " See Imperial Gazetteer of India (Oxford, 1908), s.v. Bihar and "Bengal"; V. A. Smith Early History of India (2nd ed., Oxford, 1908). BEHÅ UD-DIN [ABU-L-MAḤĀSIN YUSUF IBN RAFI IBN SHADDAD BEHÃ JD DIN] (1145-1234), Arabian writer and statesman, was born in Mosul and early became famous for his knowledge of the Koran and of jurisprudence. Before the age of thirty he became teacher in the great college at Bagdad known as the Nizamiyya,and soon after became professorat Mosul. In 1187,after making the pilgrimage to Mecca, he visited Damascus. Saladin, who was at the time besieging Kaukab (a few miles south of Tiberias), sent for him and became his friend. Beha ud-Din observed that the whole soul of the monarch was engrossed by the war which he was then engaged in waging against the enemies of the faith, and saw that the only mode of acquiring his favour For list of other extant works see C. Brockelmann, Geschichte der arabischen Litteratur (Weimar, 1898), vol. i. pp. 316 f. (G. W. T.) BEHA UD-DIN ZUHAIR (ABÜ-L FADL ZUHAIR IBN MAḤOMMED AL-MUHALLABI) (1186-1258), Arabian poet, was born at or near Mecca, and became celebrated as the best writer of prose and verse and the best calligraphist of his time. He entered the service of Malik uş-Sāliḥ Najm ud-Din in Mesopotamia, and was with him at Damascus until he was betrayed and imprisoned. Behā ud-Din then retired to Nablus (Shechem) where he remained until Najm ud-Din escaped and obtained possession of Egypt, whither he accompanied him in 1240. There he remained as the sultan's confidential secretary until his death, due to an epidemic, in 1258. His poetry consists mostly of panegyric and brilliant occasional verse distinguished for its elegance. It has been published with English metrical translation by E. H. Palmer (2 vols., Cambridge, 1877). His life was written by his contemporary Ibn Khallikān (see M'G. de Slane's trans. of his Biographical Dictionary, vol. i pp. 542-545). (G. W. T.) BEHBAHAN, a walled town of Persia in the province of Fars, pleasantly situated in the midst of a highly cultivated plain, 128 m. W.N.W. of Shiraz and 3 m. from the left bank of the river Tab, here called Kurdistan river. It is the capital of the KuhgiluBehbahan sub-province of Fars and has a population of about 10,000. The walls are about 3 m. in circumference and a Narinj Kalah (citadel) stands in the south-east corner. At a short distance north-west of the city are the ruins of Arrajan, the old capital of the province. BEHEADING, a mode of executing capital punishment (q.v.). It was in use among the Greeks and Romans, and the former, as Xenophon says at the end of the second book of the Anabasis, regarded it as a most honourable form of death. So did the Romans, by whom it was known as decollatio or capitis amputatio. The head was laid on a block placed in a pit dug for the purpose, in the case of a military offender, outside the intrenchments, in civil cases outside the city walls, near the porta decumana. Before execution the criminal was tied to a stake and whipped with rods. In earlier years an axe was used; afterwards a sword, which was considered a more honourable instrument of death, and was used in the case of citizens (Dig. 48, 19, 28). It was with a sword that Cicero's head was struck off by a common soldier. The beheading of John the Baptist proves that the tetrarch Herod had adopted from his suzerain the Roman mode of execution. Suetonius (Calig. c. 32) states that Caligula kept a soldier, an artist in beheading, who in his presence decapitated prisoners fetched indiscriminately for that purpose from the gaols. Beheading is said to have been introduced into England from Normandy by William the Conqueror. The first person to suffer was Waltheof, earl of Northumberland, in 1076. An ancient MS. relating to the earls of Chester states that the serjeants or bailiffs of the earls had power to behead any malefactor or thief, and gives an account of the presenting of several heads of felons at the castle of Chester by the earl's serjeant. It appears that, axe-cuts on it, probably not one in early use. The axe which the custom also attached to the barony of Malpas. In a roll of 3 Edward II., beheading is called the " custom of Cheshire " (Lysons' Cheshire, p. 299, from Harl. MS. 2009 fol. 34b). The liberty of Hardwick, in Yorkshire, was granted the privilege of beheading thieves. (See GUILLOTINE.) But with the exceptions above stated beheading was usually reserved as the mode of executing offenders of high rank. From the 15th century onward the victims of the axe include some of the highest personages in the kingdom: Archbishop Scrope (1405); duke of Buckingham (1483); Catherine Howard (1542); earl of Surrey (1547); duke of Somerset (1552); duke of Northumberland (1553); Lady Jane Grey (1554); Lord Guildford Dudley (1554); Mary queen of Scots (1587); earl of Essex (1601); Sir Walter Raleigh (1618); earl of Strafford (1641); Charles I. (1649); Lord William Russell (1683); duke of Monmouth (1685); earl of Derwentwater (1716); earl of Kenmure (1716); earl of Kilmarnock and Lord Balmerino (1746); and the list closes with Simon, Lord Lovat, who (9th of April 1747) was the last person beheaded in England. The execution of Anne Boleyn was carried out not with the axe, but with a sword, and by a French headsman specially brought over from Calais. In 1644 Archbishop Laud was condemned to be hanged, and the only favour granted him, and that reluctantly, was that his sentence should be changed to beheading. In the case of the 4th Earl Ferrers (1760) his petition to be beheaded was refused and he was hanged. Executions by beheading usually took place on Tower Hill, London, where the scaffold stood permanently during the 15th and 16th centuries. In the case of certain state prisoners, e.g. Anne Boleyn and Lady Jane Grey, the sentence was carried out within the Tower on the green by St Peter's chapel. Beheading was only a part of the common-law method of punishing male traitors, which was ferocious in the extreme. According to Walcot's case (1696), 1 Eng. Rep. 89, the proper sentence was " quod ibidem super bigam (herdillum) ponatur et abinde usque ad furcas de [Tyburn] trahatur, et ibidem per collum suspendatur et vivus ad terram prosternatur et quod secreta membra ejus amputentur, et interiora sua intra ventrem suum capiantur et in ignem ponantur et ibidem ipso vivente comburantur, et quod caput ejus amputetur, quodque corpus ejus in quatuor partes dividatur et illo ponantur ubi dominus rex eas assignare voluit." There is a tradition that Harrison the regicide after being disembowelled rose and boxed the ears of the executioner. In Townley's case (18 Howell, State Trials, 350, 351) there is a ghastly account of the mode of executing the sentence; and in that case the executioner cut the traitor's throat. In the case of the Cato Street conspiracy(1820, 33 Howell, State Trials, 1566), after the traitors had been hanged as directed by the act of 1814, their heads were cut off by a man in a mask whose dexterity led to the belief that he was a surgeon. Female traitors were until 1790 liable to be drawn to execution and burnt alive. In that year hanging was substituted for burning. In 1814 so much of the sentence as related to disembowelling and burning the bowels was abolished and the king was empowered by royal warrant to substitute decapitation for hanging, which was made by that act the ordinary mode of executing traitors. But it was not till 1870 that the portions of the sentence as to drawing and quartering were abolished (Forfeiture Act 1870). The more barbarous features of the execution were remitted in the case of traitors of high rank, and the offender was simply decapitated. The block usually employed is believed to have been a low one such as would be used for beheading a corpse. C. H. Firth and S. R. Gardiner incline to the view that such a block was the one used at Charles I.'s execution. The more general custom, however, seems to have been to have a high block over which the victim knelt. Such is the form of that preserved in the armoury of the Tower of London. This is undoubtedly the block upon which Lord Lovat suffered, but, in spite of several stands beside it was used to behead him and the other Jacobite lords, but no certainty exists as to its having been previously employed. On the ground floor of the King's House, at the Tower, is preserved the processional axe which figured in the journeys of state prisoners to and from their trials, the edge turned from them as they went, but almost invariably turned towards them as they returned to the Tower. The axe's head is peculiar in form, 1 ft. 8 in. high by 10 in. wide, and is fastened into a wooden handle 5 ft. 4 in. long. The handle is ornamented by four rows of burnished brass nails. In Scotland they did not behead with the axe, nor with the sword, as under the Roman law, and formerly in Holland and France, but with the maiden (9.9.). Capital punishment is executed by beheading in France, and in Belgium by means of the guillotine. In Germany the instrument used varies in different states in the old provinces of Prussia the axe, in Saxony and Rhenish Prussia the guillotine. Until 1851 executions were public. They now take place within a prison in the presence of certain specified officials. Beheading is also the mode of executing capital punishment in Denmark and Sweden. The axe is used. In Sweden the execution takes place on the order of the king within a prison in the presence of certain specified officials and, if desired, of twelve representatives of the commune within which the prison is situate (Code 1864, s. 2, Royal Ordinance 1877). In the Chinese empire decapitation is the usual mode of execution. By an imperial edict (24th of April 1905) certain attendant barbarities have been suppressed: viz. slicing, cutting up the body, and exhibiting the head to public view (32 Clunet, 1175). BEHEMOTH (the intensive plural of the Hebrew b'kemah, a beast), the animal mentioned in the book of Job (ch. xl. 15), probably the hippopotamus, which in ancient times was found in Egypt below the cataracts of Syene. The word may be used in Job as typical of the primeval king of land animals, as leviathan of the water animals. The modern use expresses the idea of a very large and strong animal. BEHISTUN, or BISITUN, now pronounced Bisutun, a little village at the foot of a precipitous rock, 1700 ft. high, in the centre of the Zagros range in Persia on the right bank of the Samas-Ab, the principal tributary of the Kerkha (Choaspes). The original form of the name, Bagistana, "place of the gods or" of God" has been preserved by the Greek authors Stephanus of Byzantium, and Diodorus (ii. 13), the latter of whom says that the place was sacred to Zeus, i.e. Ahuramazda (Ormuzd). At its foot passes the great road which leads from Babylonia (Bagdad) to the highlands of Media (Ecbatana, Hamadan). On the steep face of the rock, some 500 ft. above the plain, Darius L. king of Persia, had engraved a great cuneiform inscription (11 or 12 ft. high), which recounts the way in which, after the death of Cambyses, he killed the usurper Gaumata (in Justin Gometes, the pseudo-Smerdis), defeated the numerous rebels, and restored the kingdom of the Achaemenidae. Above the inscription the picture of the king himself is graven, with a bow in his hand, putting his left foot on the body of Gaumata. Nine rebel chiefs are led before him, their hands bound behind them, and a rope round their necks; the ninth is Skunka, the chief of the Scythians (Sacae) whom he defeated. Behind the king stand his bow-bearer and his lance-bearer; in the air appears the figure of the great god Ahuramazda, whose protection led him to victory. The inscriptions are composed in the three languages which are written with cuneiform signs, and were used in all official inscriptions of the Achaemenian kings: the chief place A passage in the inscription runs:-" Thus saith Darius the king: That which I have done I have done altogether by the grace of Ahuramazda. Ahuramazda, and the other gods that be, brought aid to me.. For this reason did Ahuramazda, and the other gods that be, bring aid to me, because I was not hostile, nor a liar, nor a (arštam) have I ruled." (A. V. Williams Jackson, Persia, Past and wrongdoer, neither I nor my family, but according to Rectitude Present.) |