History of Kanauj to the Moslem Conquest c17.s1: Bhoja II
History of Kanauj to the Moslem Conquest c17.s1
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Bhoja II
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It is difficult to fix the exact date of Mahendrapāla’s death, but as his last known date is 907-08 A. D., we may tentatively accept the year 910 A. D. as a close approximation to the event. According to the so-called Asiatic Society’s plate of Vināyakapāla, he was succeeded by his son Bhoja, usually designated Bhoja II, whose mother was queen Dehanāgā-Devī. The Asni inscription on the other hand makes no mention of him, and represents his half-brother Mahīpāla, born of Mahīdevī,¹ as having come after Mahendrapāla. This omission may therefore be explained either by the extreme shortness of Bhoja’s reign, or by the assumption that there was a war of succession and at first the victorious claimant did not think it prudent to recall on stone the existence of one whom he had overthrown. But when with the lapse of time his memory had faded away, he felt no scruples in mentioning the name of his rival in the genealogical list. Probably the latter hypothesis finds some support from the following passage in the Bilhari inscription : "Having conquered the whole earth, he (Kokalladeva I) set up two unprecedented columns of his fame,—in the quarter of the pitcher-born (Agastya) (i.c., in the south) that well-known Kṛṣṇarāja, and in the quarter of Kuvera (i.e., in the north) Bhojadeva, a store of fortune.”¹ This statement is further corroborated in the Benares grant of Karṇadeva, dated (Cedi) year 973 or 1042 A. D., which says that Kokalla “granted freedom from fear to Bhoja and others.”² The Bhoja referred to in these inscriptions must be identified with Bhoja II, as it seems out of the question that Bhoja I, who was a mighty monarch holding wide sway, could have owed or retained his position owing to the protecting hand of Kokalla I. It appears therefore that in his attempt to gain the throne Bhoja II invoked the aid of Kokalla, possibly on the strength of some matrimonial relations with the Kalacuri family, and succeeded in ousting his rival brother. Mahīpāla, however, did not despair at this initial defeat, and as we shall see below, the tide soon turned in his favour.³
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¹ Mahādevī according to the Partabgarh inscription, *Ep. Ind.*, XIV, pp. 178, 183.
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¹ Ibid., I, pp. 256, 264, verse 17.
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² Cf. “Yasya asīt abhayadaḥ pāṇiḥ” (Ep. Ind., I, p. 306, verse 7).
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³ Mr. Niharranjan Ray tries to identify Bhoja II with Mahīpāla on the ground that, like the earlier Vikramāditya, Bhoja was the title adopted by the Pratihāra rulers (Ind. Ant., Oct., 1928, p. 232). It is, however, difficult to appreciate the force of this identification, as there is no justification to regard this epithet as a common feature of the Pratihāra names.