SYSTEMS OF ASTRONOMY. 243 



pu'ra, Ca'lida's, the celebrated Vara'ha Mihira 

 and Bararuchi, were the nine gems in the coun- 

 cil o^ Raja Vicrama." 



Upon shewing the above verse to an inteUigent 

 pandit, he smiled and said, with a degree of can- 

 dour I did not expect, that the inference, witli re- 

 spect to time, usually drawn from it, was not just; 

 for that there had been several princes of the name 

 of Vicrama, or Vicrama'ditya. That, exclu- 

 sive of the one from whom the epoch is reckoned, 

 there was another in the time of Salvahan ; a 

 third who had succeeded Raja Bhoj a ; and a fourth 

 lineally descended from the latter, now living at a 

 place, called Bhojpoor, beyond Patna : — that, be- 

 side these, there were many others, who had sprung 

 up at different periods in the same family, but that 

 the particular prince in whose time Vara'ha Mi- 

 hira, and the others above named, flourished, was 

 the immediate successor of Raja Bhoj a. For, that 

 they were first in the council of Rajah Bhoja, and 

 afterwards in that of Vicrama'ditya his successor. 

 This simple explanation of the pandit, was a com- 

 plete solution of the mystery on which the pre- 

 tended antiquity of the works of Vara'ha, Ama- 

 ras'inha, Ca'lidas, Bararuchi, &c. were found- 

 ed, and which led many into an error that they 

 were written before the Cliristian era, though in 

 reality little more than seven hundred years old. 



Raja Bhoja, according to the Ayeen Akbery, be- 

 gan his reign about the year 1 153 of Salvahan. — 

 This, however, must be incorrect, for it seems, that 

 according to Hindu accounts, and others, he began 

 his reign about 210 years before the death of Raja 

 PiTHAURA, who fell in battle with the Maliomedaiis^ 

 A. H. 588, or A. D. 11 92. And as Raja Bhoja is 

 said to have reigned 1 00 years, he must consequently 

 have ascended tlie throne A. D. 982, and died A. 

 D, 1082: which ao-rees cxactlv with the time in 



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