History of Aurangzib, Based on Original Sources v1.c5.3

v1.c5.3

The country took its name from its dominant race, the Bundelas, a clan of Gaharwar Rajputs, whose mythical genealogy stretches up to Rajah Pancham, a sworn devotee of the goddess Vindhya-basini, and even beyond him to Rama, the hero of the Ramayana.[*] The only element of truth that we can extract from this mass of fiction is that a great ancestor of the family migrated from the Benares, through the Mirzapur District, and established his rule over this tract by dispossessing its older rulers, Afghans and aborigines.* Urchha, on the Betwa, was their first capital, (founded in 1531). Here lived the head of the clan. The Bundelas multiplied fast, and the younger branches established principalities all over the land, each centring round a fort. One of these, Mahoba, sheltered within a network of ravines, rose to prominence in the latter half of the seventeenth century, under, Champat Rao and his son Chhatra Sal, who long troubled the Imperial government. Other scions of the family reigned at Simroha Shahpur, and many another town.†