History of Mediaeval Hindu India (being a History of India from 600 to 1200 A.D.) v3.c34.s1.52

v3.c34.s1.52

Bhoja was not only a great author but a great patron of learned men. Unlike again Mahmud, his contemporary, Bhoja was extremely generous to learned men and stories are related of his generosity to poets by story-tellers in which a lakh of rupees is said to have been the usual reward of poets who brought a single new and good śloka. This is exactly the reverse of Mahmud's reputation. Although we regard these tales as story-tellers' exaggerations, there is no doubt of Bhoja's extreme liberality to learned men and this has certainly been the greatest preserver of his glory and renown than his political successes or his great structures none of which is now remembered or left. We do not believe there was any Kālidāsa, new, or old, at his court and this name is a fiction of story-tellers or Padmagupta author of Navasāhasānkacharita and court-poet of his father also, was given the title of Kālidāsa. Dhanapāla another poet is properly associated with Bhoja and Uvata a native of Vadnagar wrote his commentary on the Vājasaneyi Samhitā at Ujjain during Bhoja's rule ( Luard & Lele p. 21 ). Many other learned men must have attended Bhoja's court but their names are not yet known.