36. See _ante_, Chapter 23 note 11, and Chapter 26 note 14, and the authorities there cited. The Chandêl history occupies an important place in the mediaeval annals of India. Several important inscriptions of the dynasty have been correctly edited in the _Epigraphia Indica_. Mahoba is not now a 'ruined city'; it is a moderately prosperous country town, with a tolerable bazaar, and about eleven thousand inhabitants. It is the head-quarters of a 'tahsîldâr', or sub-collector, and a station on the Midland Railway. The ruined temples and places in and near the town are of much interest. For many miles round the country is full of remarkable remains, some of which are in fairly good preservation. The published descriptions of these works are far from being exhaustive. The author was mistaken in supposing that the power of the Chandêls was broken by the Bundêlas. The last Chandêl king, who ruled over an extensive dominion, was Paramardi Deva, or Parmâl. This prince was defeated in a pitched battle, or rather a series of battles, near the Betwa river, by Prithîrâj Chauhân, king of Kanauj, in the year 1182. 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 Musalmâns, Bhars, Khangârs, and others. The Bundêlas, an offshoot of the Gaharwâr 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 Râi, the contemporary of Jahângîr and Shah Jâhan, in the first half of the seventeenth century. The line of Chandêl kings was continued in the persons of obscure local chiefs, whose very names are, for the most part, forgotten. The story of Durgâvatî, briefly told in the text, casts a momentary flash of light on their obscurity. The principal nobleman of the Chandêl race now occupying a dignified position is the Râjâ of Gidhaur in the Mungir (Monghyr) district of Bengal, whose ancestor emigrated from Mahoba. The war between the Chandêls and Chauhâns is the subject of a long section or canto of the Hindi epic, the _Chand-Râisâ_, written by Chand Bardâi, the court poet of Prithîrâj, of which the original MS. 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.