The Early History of India, from 600 B.C. to the Muhammadan Conquest, including the Invasion of Alexander the Great c31.s5.19

c31.s5.19

The next king, Rāmabhadra’s son Mihira, usually known by his title Bhoja, enjoyed a long reign of about half a century (*c.* 840–90), and beyond question was a very powerful monarch, whose dominions may be called an ‘empire’ without exaggeration. They certainly included the Cis-Sutlaj districts of the Panjāb, most of Rājputāna, the greater part, if not the whole, of the present United Provinces of Agra and Oudh, and the Gwālior territory. The next two kings being known to have held the remote province of Surāshtra, or Kāthiāwār, in the extreme west, the possession of which implies control over Gujarāt and Mālava or Avanti, it is highly probable that these distant regions also were subject to the sway of Bhoja. On the east his dominions abutted on the realm of Devapāla, king of Bengal and Bihār, which he invaded successfully; on the north-west his boundary probably was the Sutlaj river; on the west the lost Hakrā or Wahindah river separated his territories from those of his enemies, the Muhammadan chiefs of Sind; on the south-west his powerful Rāshtrakūta rival, the ally of the Muhammadans, kept his armies continually on the alert; while on the south his next neighbour was the growing Chandēl kingdom of Jejākabhukti, the modern Bundelkhand, which probably acknowledged his suzerainty.¹ Bhoja liked to pose as an incarnation of Vishnu, and therefore assumed the title of *Ādi Varāha*, 'the primaeval boar,' one of the incarnations of the god. Base silver coins inscribed with this title are exceedingly common in Northern India, and by their abundance attest the long duration and wide extension of Bhoja's rule.² Unfortunately no Megasthenes or Bāna has left a record of the nature of his internal government, and it is impossible to compare the polity of Bhoja with that of his great forerunners.