in 5,000 verses still exists. It was subsequently expanded to 125,000
verses (_E.H.I._, 3rd ed., 1914, p. 387 note). The war is also the
theme of the songs of many popular rhapsodists. The story is, of
course, encrusted with a thick deposit of miraculous legend, and none
of the details can be relied on. But the fact and the date of the war
are fully proved by incontestable evidence.
37. The marriage of Durgavati is no proof that her father, the
Chandel Raja, was powerful in Mahoba in the time of Akbar. It is
rather an indication that he was poor and weak. If he had been rich
and strong, he would probably have refused his daughter to a Gond,
even though complaisant bards might invent a Rajput genealogy for the
bridegroom. The story about the army of fifty thousand men cannot be
readily accepted as sober fact. It looks like a courtly invention to
explain a mesalliance. The inducement really offered to the proud but
poor Chandel was, in all likelihood, a large sum of money, according
to the usual practice in such cases. Several indications exist of
close relations between the Gonds and Chandels in earlier times.
Pages:
426
427
428
429
430
431
432
433
434
435
436
437
438
439
440
441
442
443
444
445
446
447
448
449
450