Maharaja Jaichandra

Maharaja Jaichandra was heir to the glorious Gahadavala dynasty of Kannauj. From their historic base in Varanasi they created perhaps the greatest empire of Central and Eastern India in the early medieval age. The empire stood strong against the realm of Mahmud of Ghazni and imposed expensive tributes on the Turks called Turushka-danda. Some modern scholars have claimed it perhaps was a tax imposed on the subjects to fight the Ghaznavids, but the classical view had always been it were reparations imposed upon the invaders.

Maharaja Jaichandra was the defender of the faith and a great patron of art and culture. He constructed the celebrated and now contentious Ram Mandir at Ayodhya. After the fall of Prithviraj Chauhan in the second battle of Tarain, he stood as the final Rajput bulwark against the Ghorids who by then had overthrown the Ghaznavids and took Ghazni as their own capital.

As per Kamil ut-Tawarikh, Jaichandra mentioned as Rai of Banaras, was the greatest king of India by the virtue of possessing the largest territory and armed forces. He was said to have under him a million soldiers and 700 elephants.

Purusha-Pariksha of Vidyapati mentions that Maharaja successfully defeated the Ghurids in at least a dozen major battles. Finally in the battle of Battle of Chandawar, Maharaja Jaichandra attained martyrdom and became one with millions of sons of the soil who sacrificed their lives for the motherland.