CHAP. II.] THE BUNDELA CLAN. 15 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 multi- plied 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.t Bir Singh Dev. The Bundela power reached its zenith under Bir Singh Dev, the agent employ- ed by Jahangir in murdering his father's beloved minister Abul Fazl. There was hardly any favour which the Emperor could
- Elliot's Memoirs...of the Races of the N. W. P. ed. by
Beames, i. 45-46. Imperial Gazetteer (ed. 1906) ix, 68, 70, Masir-ul-Umara, ii. 131. Pogson, 11. Urchha is situated 7 m. south-east of Jhansi fort. Mahoba is midway on the railway line between Jhansi and Manikpur. Digitized by Microsoft Ⓡ
