After the death of his father in a battle in 1179, Prithviraj Chauhan succeeded the throne. Even as a young boy he could accurately hit targets only on the basis of its sounds. He was a very brave and intelligent child blessed with sharp military skills. Born as the son of Someshwar Chauhan, the king of Ajmer, Prithviraj started displaying signs of his greatness at an early age. Also known as Rai Pithora, he was a Rajput king hailing from the Chauhan dynasty. Prithviraj Chauhan was a Rajput king who ruled the kingdoms of Ajmer and Delhi in northern India in 12th century he was one of the last independent Hindu kings to sit upon the throne of Delhi. Even so, Kannauj fought well until an arrow felled Jaichand - and Ghori had a clean sweep of this battlefield too.Prithviraj Chauhan was born on 1166 in Ajmer, Indian, is Rajput king of the Chauhan dynasty. A pitched battle was fought, but in the intervening three years, Mohammed Ghori had increased his army’s size manifold. Somewhere in the region between Kannauj and Etawah, at a place called Chandwar (near modern Firozabad), the two armies clashed. Together, they attacked the person who had aided them just two years before! Jaichand, now fighting all alone and for himself, put on his armour and led his army out of Kannauj. Next in line was Kannauj itself! At this point, Mohammed Ghori once again descended from the Khyber Pass and joined Qutubuddin Aibak. Then he turned towards modern day Meerut and Aligarh, areas under the influence of Kannauj and Jaichand. He battled at Delhi and Ajmer, and finished the remnants of Prithviraj Chauhan’s army. Mohammed Ghori returned to his domains beyond the Khyber Pass, and left Qutubuddin Aibak to ‘settle matters’ in the newly conquered territories. But Jaichand’s name is no longer found in history, and India’s history from 1192 takes a definitive turn. With the demise of Prithviraj Chauhan, Jaichand automatically became one of the most powerful rulers in north India. His kingdom included today’s eastern Uttar Pradesh and western Bihar, including the holy city of Varanasi. Certainly, if his presence or rather absence decided the battle, he cannot have been an unimportant person. If not anything else, at least some kind of alliance? A peaceful old age and long-running dynasty for sure? Jaichand, we must remember, ruled over a vast area, stretching from today’s Kannauj to Varanasi. One would believe that for staying away from Tarain he must have been justly rewarded by Mohammed Ghori, the new ruler of Delhi. But perhaps the bigger lesson lies in knowing what happened to Jaichand a mere two years after staying aloof from the battle that killed Prithviraj Chauhan. There are some very obvious lessons to be learnt here. Popular knowledge ends with the Second Battle of Tarain. In the Second Battle of Tarain, the depleted forces of Prithviraj Chauhan were defeated and the ruler of Delhi killed. Some chronicles state he actively helped Mohammed Ghori. Jaichand, the powerful ruler of Kannauj with a rich city like Varanasi under him, refused to help. Prithviraj Chauhan cobbled up an alliance to face him, like he had the first time. Meanwhile, Mohammed Ghori, still smarting from his defeat, planned extensively for a second invasion. After this, even a few battles were fought between the armies of Prithviraj Chauhan and Jaichand, and in the process Prithviraj lost some of his best generals. The most popular account is about how Jaichand, the ruler of Kannauj, was unwilling to give his daughter’s hand in marriage to Prithviraj Chauhan, and this then snowballed into a political rivalry. Historians are divided as to what exactly transpired in the one year after the first battle of Tarain. And that is the point from where things started going from bad to worse. After the battle, instead of nipping the threat in the bud, Chauhan allowed Ghori to retreat and escape. This grand alliance, along with some other prominent Rajputs, had enabled Prithviraj Chauhan to crush Mohammed Ghori in the First Battle of Tarain (1191). As history tells us, he was initially allied with Prithviraj Chauhan, the ruler of Delhi and north India. The name ‘Jaichand’ is today synonymous with treason and treachery.