Prithviraj defeated the Chandelas and ravaged Jejakabhukti; Paramardi kept his throne, and the two greatest Hindu kingdoms of the north were left weaker ten years before Tarain.
01Three lines at Madanpur
At Madanpur, in Lalitpur district, three short inscriptions on a temple, dated Vikrama 1239 (1182 CE), say that Prithviraja, son of Someshvara, laid waste the land of Jejakabhukti, the Chandela kingdom of Paramardi. That is all the stone says. It is enough to fix the war. Paramardi, the Parmal of the bards, ruled from Mahoba and Kalinjar, and his inscriptions continue for twenty years after, so the kingdom survived. The Chahamana army went home with the plunder of Bundelkhand.
02Alha and Udal
In the Alha-khand, the great ballad cycle still sung across Bundelkhand and the Ganga plain in the rainy season, the war is the story of two brothers, Alha and Udal, Banaphar captains of Paramardi. Exiled by an ungrateful court, they come back to save Mahoba when Prithviraj attacks. Udal dies fighting; Alha, who never knew defeat, gives up the sword and goes to the forest. The ballads place many more battles around this one, and their details cannot be checked. The core, a Chauhan war against Mahoba in 1182, is in the inscriptions. A statue of Udal on horseback stands in Mahoba today.
The war between the Chahamanas and Chandelas on the eve of the Ghurid invasions left neither ready to help the other when the test came at Tarain.