Note 1 — Rājpūt, Bisen

Rājpūt, Chandel.—An important clan of Rājpūts, of which a small number reside in the northern Districts of Saugor, Damoh and Jubbulpore, and also in Chhattīsgarh. The name is derived by Mr. Crooke from the Sanskrit chandra, the moon. The Chandel are not included in the thirty-six royal races, and are supposed to have been a section of one of the indigenous tribes which rose to power. Mr. V.A. Smith states that the Chandels, like several other dynasties, first came into history early in the ninth century, when Nannuka Chandel about A.D. 831 overthrew a Parihār chieftain and became lord of the southern parts of Jejākabhukti or Bundelkhand. Their chief towns were Mahoba and Kālanjar in Bundelkhand, and they gradually advanced northwards till the Jumna became the frontier between their dominions and those of Kanauj. They fought with the Gūjar-Parihār kings of Kanauj and the Kālachuris of Chedi, who had their capital at Tewar in Jubbulpore, and joined in resisting the incursions of the Muhammadans. In A.D. 1182 Parmāl, the Chandel king, was defeated by Prithwi Rāja, the Chauhān king of Delhi, after the latter had abducted the Chandel’s daughter. This was the war in which Alha and Udal, the famous Banāphar heroes, fought for the Chandels, and it is commemorated in the Chand-Raisa, a poem still well known to the people of Bundelkhand. In A.D. 1203 Kālanjar was taken by the Muhammadan Kutb-ud-Dīn Ibak, and the importance of the Chandel rulers came to an end, though they lingered on as purely local chiefs until the sixteenth century. The Chandel princes were great builders, and beautified their chief towns, Mahoba, Kālanjar and Khajurāho with many magnificent temples and lovely lakes, formed by throwing massive dams across the openings between the hills.1 Among these were great irrigation works in the Hamīrpur District, the forts of Kālanjar and Ajaighar, and the noble temples at Khajurāho and Mahoba.2 Even now the ruins of old forts and temples in the Saugor and Damoh Districts are attributed by the people to the Chandels, though many were in fact probably constructed by the Kālachuris of Chedi.