[Pramāṇa](https://indike.org/pramana/) › [Studies](https://indike.org/pramana/ins) › [General history and culture](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.general) › [The Early History of India, from 600 B.C. to the Muhammadan Conquest, including the Invasion of Alexander the Great](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.general.smith-1924) › c31.s7 # The Early History of India, from 600 B.C. to the Muhammadan Conquest, including the Invasion of Alexander the Great c31.s7: VII. Paramāras (Pawārs) of Mālwā The Early History of India, from 600 B.C. to the Muhammadan Conquest, including the Invasion of Alexander the Great c31.s7 - **Language:** English ### VII. Paramāras (Pawārs) of Mālwā ### [c31.s7.2](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.general.smith-1924.c31.s7.2) The Paramāra dynasty of Mālwā, the region north of the Narmadā, anciently known as Avanti, or the kingdom of Ujjain, is specially memorable by reason of its association with many eminent names in the history of later Sanskrit literature. The dynasty was founded by a chief named Upendra or Krishnarāja, early in the ninth century, when so many ruling families attract notice for the first time, and it lasted for about four centuries. Upendra appears to have come from Chandrāvatī and Achalgarh, near Mount Ābū, where his clan had been settled for a long time. ### [c31.s7.3](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.general.smith-1924.c31.s7.3) The seventh Rāja, named Muñja, who was famous for his learning and eloquence, was not only a patron of poets, but himself a poet of no small reputation, as attested by the anthologies, which include various compositions attributed to his pen. The author Dhanamjaya and his brother Dhanika were among the distinguished scholars who graced his court. His energies were not devoted solely to the peaceful pursuit of literature, much of his time being spent in fighting with his neighbours. Six times the Chalukya king, Taila II, was defeated by him. The seventh attack failed, and Muñja, who had crossed the Godāvarī, Taila's northern boundary, was defeated, captured, and executed about A. D. 995.¹ ### [c31.s7.4](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.general.smith-1924.c31.s7.4) ¹ Muñja had an embarrassing variety of names—Vākpati (II), Utpalarāja, Amoghavarsha, Prithivīvallabha, and Śrīvallabha. His accession took place in A. D. 974, and his death about twenty years later, between 994 and 997 (\*Bühler\*, in \*Ep. Ind.\*, i, 222–8, 294, 302; Fleet, 'Dynasties of Kanarese Districts,' 2nd ed., p. 432, in \*Bom. Gaz.\*, 1896, vol. i, part ii; Bhandarkar, 'Early Hist. of Dekkan,' ibid., p. 214). The attacks were six, not sixteen, as erroneously supposed by Bühler (Haas, \*Daśarūpa\*, p. xxii, note 4; Columbia Univ. Press, 1912). ### [c31.s7.5](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.general.smith-1924.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 ### [c31.s7.6](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.general.smith-1924.c31.s7.6) ¹ \*Archaeol. S. Annual Rep.\*, 1903–4, pp. 238–43. The most complete list of the works ascribed to Bhoja is said to be that in Aufrecht’s \*Catalogus Catalogorum\*, vol. i, p. 418, vol. ii, p. 95. For Bhoja’s date and the history of his predecessor, Sindhurāja, see \*Ind. Ant.\*, 1907, pp. 170–2. Two inscriptions of his are known, dated respectively in A. D. 1019 and 1021 = v. E. 1076 and 1078 (\*Ind. Ant.\*, 1912, p. 201). ### [c31.s7.7](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.general.smith-1924.c31.s7.7) The great Bhōjpur lake, a beautiful sheet of water to the south-east of Bhopāl, covering an area of more than 250 square miles, formed by massive embankments closing the outlet in a circle of hills, was his noblest monument, and continued to testify to the skill of his engineers until the fifteenth century, when the dam was cut by order of a Muhammadan king, and the water drained off. The bed of the lake is now a fertile plain intersected by the Indian Midland Railway.² ### [c31.s7.8](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.general.smith-1924.c31.s7.8) ² Malcolm, \*Central India\*, i, 25 ; Kincaid, \*Ind. Ant.\*, xvii, pp. 350–2, with map of the bed of the lake. Further details are given in Major Luard’s article, ‘Gazetteer Gleanings in Central India’ : the great dam and temple at Bhojpur in Bhopal State, \*J. R. A. S.\*, 1914, pp. 309–16, with map and photo of the remains of the dam. The king who cut the dam was Hoshang Shāh of Mālwa (1405–35). The lake, while it existed, probably modified the climate and tended to prevent famine. ### [c31.s7.9](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.general.smith-1924.c31.s7.9) About A. D. 1060 this accomplished prince succumbed to an attack by the confederate kings of Gujarāt and Chedi ; and the glory of his house departed. His dynasty lasted as a purely local power until the beginning of the thirteenth century, when it was superseded by chiefs of the Tomara clan, who were followed in their turn by Chauhān Rājas,³ from whom the crown passed to Muhammadan kings in 1401. Akbar suppressed the local dynasty in 1562, and incorporated Mālwā in the Moghal empire. ### [c31.s7.10](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.general.smith-1924.c31.s7.10) ³ Malcolm, \*Central India\*, i, 26. ## Linked texts (1) - [Saraswati Temple](https://indike.org/pramana/inp.monument.saraswati-temple) --- Source: [https://indike.org/pramana/ins.general.smith-1924.c31.s7](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.general.smith-1924.c31.s7) · Pramāṇa