3I18 TIZE INDIAN EMPIRE [CHAP.
far as Khajraho, attest the prevalence of the creed and the
wealth of its devotees.
Subsequent With the Muhammadan invasion the mediaeval history of
fortunes the Hindus comes to an end. During the thirteenth and four-
of the
Rijputs. teenth centuries the Muhammadans captured, although they
failed to keep, every stronghold in Rqjputana, and they estab-
lished themselves permanently through the rest of Northern
India. The 'land was sunk deep in the Turushka sea,' and
the face of RAjputAna suffered a change. The Gahlots (or
Sesodias) of Mewar alone maintained themselves against the
Muhammadan invaders, and the repeated capture of their
capital, Chitor, served only to increase their fame. The
Kachwahas, when deprived of Gwalior by the Parihars
(A.D. I 129), had found a refuge among the savage Minas, and
founded the kingdom of Dhundar with its capital Amber, which
ultimately blossomed under the sheltering aegis of the Mughals
into the modern states of Jaipur and Alwar. The Baghels had
settled at Rewah in the twelfth century; and in the thirteenth
century the Bundelas, a degenerate branch of the Gaharwars
and therefore distant kinsmen of the Rathors, established a
principality at Orchhl and gave their name to Bundelkhand.
The Rathors, driven out of Kanauj, founded a new kingdom
in Marwar (Jodhpur), which absorbed the neighbouring BhMtis
and Chauhans, and presently rivalled the power of the Gahlots.
In the succeeding centuries Marwar and Mewar, friends at first
and afterwards bitter enemies, were the two leading states of
Rajputana. With the fall of Delhi, Ajmer, and Mahoba, the
Chauhans and Chandels had been scattered over the face of
Northern India. They established petty principalities in the
Himalayas from Jammu to Almora; and in the fourteenth cen-
tury the Haras, a sept of the Chauhans, founded the small states
of Bundi and Kotah in Southern Rajputana. The rivalries and
wars of the Muhammadan kingdoms of Delhi, Jaunpur, and
Gujarat in the fifteenth centuries gave the Rajputs a breathing
space and formed the turning-point of their fortunes. It was
the golden prime of the Tomars of Gwalior under the famous
Man Singh (A.D. I486-151 8). The great buildings of Chitor
and Gwalior date from the fifteenth century, and they are the
first Hindu buildings of note erected after the Muhammadan
capture of Delhi. With the advent of the Mughals a better
age began, and under the wise rule of Akbar the Rajputs once
again rose to power, and became leaders and supporters of the
empire.
J. KENNEDY.
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