Chandelas of Jejakabhukti

The Chandelas of Jejakabhukti were the Rajput kings of Bundelkhand in central India, ruling between the ninth and the thirteenth centuries from their capital Khajuraho. They began as feudatories of the Gurjara-Pratiharas of Kannauj until Yashovarman made himself practically independent in the tenth century and his successor Dhanga completed the rise to full sovereignty. Their armies fought the Paramaras of Malwa and the Kalachuris of Tripuri for supremacy in central India while their builders raised the sandstone temples of Khajuraho, whose sculpture made the dynasty immortal, with further forts and waterworks at the strongholds of Ajaigarh and Kalinjar and the later capital Mahoba. Vidyadhara even punished the Kannauj king for fleeing Mahmud of Ghazni before buying off the invader with tribute. From the eleventh century the Chandelas faced the Ghaznavids and Ghurids from the north, and after Chahamana and Ghurid invasions their power effectively ended around the beginning of the thirteenth century, though minor Chandel chiefs lingered in the hills of Bundelkhand.