A few
years later, the victor was himself vanquished and slain by the
advancing Muhammadans. Mahoba and the surrounding territories then
passed through many vicissitudes, imperfectly recorded in the pages
of history, and were ruled from time to time by Musalmans, Bhars,
Khangars, and others. The Bundelas, an offshoot of the Gaharwar clan,
did not come into notice before the middle of the fourteenth century,
and first became a power in India under the leadership of Champat
Rai, the contemporary of Jahangir and Shah Jahan, in the first half
of the seventeenth century. The line of Chandel kings was continued
in the persons of obscure local chiefs, whose very names are, for the
most part, forgotten. The story of Durgavati, briefly told in the
text, casts a momentary flash of light on their obscurity. The
principal nobleman of the Chandel race now occupying a dignified
position is the Raja of Gidhaur in the Mungir (Monghyr) district of
Bengal, whose ancestor emigrated from Mahoba.
The war between the Chandels and Chauhans is the subject of a long
section or canto of the Hindi epic, the _Chand-Raisa_, written by
Chand Bardai, the court poet of Prithiraj, of which the original MS.
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