Читать книгу The Rise of Wisdom Moon - Krishna mishra - Страница 31

introduction

themselves were centered in the region that is today called Bundelkhand, in the northeast of Madhya Pradesh, where they commanded the fortress of Kalan·jara and had their cultural and religious capital at Khajuraho. Their territory at its greatest extent embraced much of present Madhya Pradesh, and to some degree reached beyond this as well. Chandella dominance in this part of Central India endured for roughly three centuries. From the eleventh century on, they were among the north Indian dynasties that were regularly harassed by Muslim Turkic raiders first from Central Asia and later the Delhi Sultanate. The fortress of Kalan· jara was itself taken by the conqueror Qutb-ud-din Aibak in 1203, but appears to have been regained not more than two years later. The Chandellas, though much weakened, continued to maintain a measure of sovereignty for another century, until they finally fade from the record with the reign of Hammira·varman (c. 1288–1311), the last of their rulers to have left surviving inscriptions.

Among the Chandellas, royal succession passed strictly from father to son, with only a small number of exceptions. One of these was the king with whom we are concerned, Kirti·varman, who inherited the throne from his elder brother Deva·varman (c. 1050–1060), apparently after the latter passed away leaving no heir. It is possible, though we do not have sufficient information to be sure, that this was due to the conquest of the Chandellas by their Kala·churi foe Lakshmi·karna (c. 1040–1073), who had embarked upon a scheme of conquest so ambitious that he has sometimes been characterized as a “Napoleon” of medieval India (Dikshit 1977: 103). What both the Ma- ________

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