DEHRA DUN

dehra dun, a district of british india, in the meerut division of the united provinces. its area is 1209 sq. m. the district is bounded on the n. by the native state of tehri or garhwal, on the e. by british garhwal, on the s. by the siwalik hills, which separate it from saharanpur district, and on the w. by the hill states of sirmur, jubbal and taroch. the valley (the dun) has an area of about 673 sq. m., and forms a parallelogram 45 m. from n.w. to s.e. and 15 m. broad. it is well wooded, undulating and intersected by streams. on the n.e. the horizon is bounded by the mussoorie or lower range of the himalayas, and on the s. by the siwalik hills. the himalayas in the north of the district attain a height between 7000 and 8000 ft., one peak reaching an elevation of 8565 ft.; the highest point of the siwalik range is 3041 ft. above sea-level. the principal passes through the siwalik hills are the timli pass, leading to the military station of chakrata, and the mohand pass leading to the sanatoriums of mussoorie and landaur. the ganges bounds the dehra valley on the e.; the jumna bounds it on the w. from a point about midway between the two rivers, and near the town of dehra, runs a ridge which forms the watershed of the valley. to the west of this ridge the water collects to form the asan, a tributary of the jumna; whilst to the east the suswa receives the drainage and flows into the ganges. to the east the valley is characterized by swamps and forests, but to the west the natural depressions freely carry off the surface drainage. along the central ridge, the water-level lies at a great depth from the surface (228 ft.), but it rises gradually as the country declines towards the great rivers. in 1901 the population was 178,195, showing an increase of 6% in the decade. a railway to dehra from hardwar, on the oudh and rohilkhand line (32 m.), was completed in 1900. the district is served by the dun canals. tea gardens cover a considerable area, and the valley contains a colony of european tea planters. _history._--dehra dun only emerges from the mists of legend into authentic history in the 17th century a.d., when it formed part of the garhwal kingdom. towards the end of the century the heretical sikh guru, ram rai, expelled from the punjab, sought refuge in the dun and gathered round him a crowd of devotees. fateh sah, raja of garhwal, endowed the temple which he built, round which grew up the town of gurudwara or dehra (q.v.). in the 18th century the fertility of the valley attracted the attention of najib-ud-daula, governor of saharanpur, who invaded it with an army of rohillas in 1757 and annexed it to his dominion. his rule, which lasted till 1770, brought great prosperity to the dun; but on his death it became a prey to the surrounding tribes, its desolation being completed after its conquest by the gurkhas in 1803. in 1814 it was taken possession of by the british, and in the following year was annexed to saharanpur. under british administration the dun rapidly recovered its prosperity. deioces ([greek: deiokes]), according to herodotus (i. 96 ff.) the first king of the medes. he narrates that, when the medes had rebelled against the assyrians and gained their independence about 710 b.c., according to his chronology (cf. diodor. ii. 32), they lived in villages without any political organization, and therefore the whole country was in a state of anarchy. then deioces, son of phraortes, an illustrious man of upright character, was chosen judge in his village, and the justness of his decisions induced the inhabitants of the other villages to throng to him. at last the medes resolved to make an end of the intolerable state of their country by erecting a kingdom, and chose deioces king. he now caused them to build a great capital, ecbatana, with a royal palace, and introduced the ceremonial of oriental courts; he surrounded himself with a guard and no longer showed himself to the people, but gave his judgments in writing and controlled the people by officials and spies. he united all the median tribes, and ruled fifty-three years (c. 699-647 b.c.), though perhaps, as g. rawlinson supposed, the fifty-three years of his reign are exchanged by mistake with the twenty-two years of his son phraortes, under whom the median conquests began. the narration of herodotus is only a popular tradition which derives the origin of kingship from its judicial functions, considered as its principal and most beneficent aspect. we know from the assyrian inscriptions that just at the time which herodotus assigns to deioces the medes were divided into numerous small principalities and subjected to the great assyrian conquerors. among these petty chieftains, sargon in 715 mentions dayukku, "lieutenant of man" (he probably was, therefore, a vassal of the neighbouring king of man in the mountains of south-eastern armenia), who joined the urartians and other enemies of assyria, but was by sargon transported to hamath in syria "with his clan." his district is called "bit-dayaukki," "house of deioces," also in 713, when sargon invaded these regions again. so it seems that the dynasty, which more than half a century later succeeded in throwing off the assyrian yoke and founded the median empire, was derived from this dayukku, and that his name was thus introduced into the median traditions, which contrary to history considered him as founder of the kingdom. (ed. m.)