[12]
The military chiefs, essentially either soldiers or robbers, were
continually fighting, either against each other, or against the
peasantry, or public officers of the paramount power, like the barons
of Europe; and that paramount power, or its delegates, often found
that the easiest way to crush one of these refractory vassals was to
put him, as such men had been put in Germany, to _the ban of the
empire_, and offer his lands, his castles, and his wealth to the
victor. This victor brought his own clansmen to occupy the lands and
castles of the vanquished; and, as these were the only things thought
worth living for, the change commonly involved the utter destruction
of the former occupants. The new possessors gave the name of their
leader, their clan, or their former place of abode, to their new
possession, and the tract of country over which they spread. Thus
were founded the Bundelas, Pawars, and Chandels [_sic_] upon the ruin
of the Chandels of Bundelkhand, the Baghelas in Baghelkhand, or Riwa,
the Kachhwahas, the Sakarwars, and others along the Chambal river,
and throughout all parts of India.
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