Rajas
offered a sacrifice of his own head to the Vindhya-basini Devi or
the goddess of the Vindhya hills, and out of the drops (_bund_) of
blood which fell on the altar a boy was born. He returned to Panna
and founded the clan which bears the name Bundela, from _bund_,
a drop. [504] It is probable that, as suggested by Captain Luard,
the name is really a corruption of Vindhya or Vindhyela, a dweller in
the Vindhya hills, where, according to their own tradition, the clan
had its birth. The Bundelas became prominent in the thirteenth or
fourteenth century, after the fall of the Chandels. "Orchha became
the chief of the numerous Bundela principalities; but its founder
drew upon himself everlasting infamy, by putting to death the wise
Abul Fazl, the historian and friend of the magnanimous Akbar, and the
encomiast and advocate of the Hindu race. From the period of Akbar
the Bundelas bore a distinguished part in all the grand conflicts,
to the very close of the monarchy." [505]

The Bundelas held the country up to the Nerbudda in the Central
Provinces, and, raiding continually into the Gond territories south
of the Nerbudda on the pretence of protecting the sacred cow which
the Gonds used for ploughing, they destroyed the castle on Chauragarh
in Narsinghpur on a crest of the Satpuras, and reduced the Nerbudda
valley to subjection. The most successful chieftain of the tribe was
Chhatarsal, the Raja of Panna, in the eighteenth century, who was
virtually ruler of all Bundelkhand; his dominions extending from Banda
in the north to Jubbulpore in the south, and from Rewah in the east
to the Betwa River in the west. But he had to call in the help of the
Peshwa to repel an invasion of the Mughal armies, and left a third
of his territory by will to the Marathas. Chhatarsal left twenty-two
legitimate and thirty illegitimate sons, and their descendants now
hold several small Bundela States, while the territories left to the
Peshwa subsequently became British. The chiefs of Panna, Orchha, Datia,
Chhatarpur and numerous other small states in the Bundelkhand agency
are Bundela Rajputs. [506] The Bundelas of Saugor do not intermarry
with the good Rajput clans, but with an inferior group of Panwars and
another clan called Dhundhele, perhaps an offshoot of the Panwars, who
are also residents of Saugor. Their character, as disclosed in a number
of proverbial sayings and stories current regarding them, somewhat
resembles that of the Scotch hi