The Early History of India, from 600 B.C. to the Muhammadan Conquest, including the Invasion of Alexander the Great c31.s7.5

c31.s7.5

Muñja's nephew, the famous Bhoja, ascended the throne of Dhārā, in those days the capital of Mālwā, about A.D. 1018, and reigned gloriously for more than forty years. Like his uncle, he cultivated with equal assiduity the arts of peace and war. Although his fights with the neighbouring powers, including one of the Muhammadan armies of Mahmūd of Ghaznī, are now forgotten, his fame as an enlightened patron of learning and a skilled author remains undimmed, and his name has become proverbial as that of the model king according to the Hindu standard. Works on astronomy, architecture, the art of poetry, and other subjects are attributed to him, and there is no doubt that he was a prince, like Samudragupta, of very uncommon ability. A mosque at Dhārā now occupies the site of Bhoja’s Sanskrit college, which seems to have been held in a temple dedicated appropriately to Sarasvatī, the goddess of learning.¹