History of Mediaeval Hindu India (being a History of India from 600 to 1200 A.D.) v3.c34.s1.29

v3.c34.s1.29

The Paramāras of Malwa were already a great power at the beginning of this sub-period, Munja and Sindhurāja having already established its independence and glory. But Malwa rose to still greater glory and renown, in fact its greatest, during the reign of Bhoja. When Munja died poets were in despair for the goddess of Sarasvatī though not for Lakshmī or Indrāṇī. The goddesses of wealth and valour might find their favourites but the goddess of learning was now, they thought, without support.* But Bhoja falsified their misgivings and in him the goddesses of wealth, valour and wisdom were equally well-seated. Bhoja in real history typified the best Kshatriya of Bhāratavarsha who cultivated both Śāstra and Śastra like Rāma and Yudhishthira of legendary days or Vikrama and Hāla of later legends. Bhoja not only patronised literary men but was a great author himself and he was master of many and diversified subjects. He studied Astronomy, Alaṅkāra (poetics), Architecture, Asceticism (Yoga) and Grammar and on each of these subjects he has left works which are still treated as authoritative. His Sarasvatī-Kanthābharaṇa on poetics, Rāja Mārtanda on asceticism and Rāja Mṛigāṅka Karaṇa on astronomy are well known and speak of his high proficiency in these sciences. As a learned man, therefore, his fame has been established in history on a permanent foundation. He built a college for Sanskrit studies at Dhar in which Sanskrit aphorisms on various subjects were inscribed on stone. The college was converted into a mosque by Mahomedans; and of still subsists at Dhar being known as the Kamāl Maula mosque. The slabs of stone which were inscribed with Sanskrit works were used for flooring and are now so rubbed over that nothing inscribed thereon is now legible. But close to this Sarasvatī-sadana or Bhāratī-bhuvana there is an old well which is still called Akkal-kuvī or well of wisdom; and it reminds us of the time when the