 What brought success to these Hindu princelings was the strong clan organisation on which they rested.There were perhaps as many as 100,000 clansmen backing the Benares rajas in what later became the districts of Benares, Gorakhpur and Azamgarh.This proved a decisive advantage when the dynasty faced its rival and nominal suzerain, the Nawab of Awadh, in the 1750s and the 1760s.