1863. | Bhoja Raja of Dhar and his Homonyms. 93 
in the case of Kunti Bhoja himself, the maternal grandfather of 
those Pandavas. The dominions of all the three are placed on the 
banks of the Ganges in Magadha or its neighbourhood. The capital 
of the last, Mrittikavati, was situated on the river Karmanasa which 
Wilson supposed to be near the modern Bhojpur. 
Next to these we come to a Bhoja Raja who is made to reign 127 
years from about B. C. 180 to B. C. 538. He was, according to the 
Orissan chronicles, “a brave, liberal, just and merciful prince. His 
court was adorned by the presence of 750 eminent poets, the chief of 
whom was Kalidasa, author of the 752 slokas called the Chédnak or 
Chataka and Maha Nataka. This Raja Bhoja invented boats, the 
weaver’s loom, and wheeled carriages, or at least in his time the use 
of them first became common. In this reign the Yavans from Sindhu 
Des invaded the country in great force, but Bhoja discomfited and de- 
stroyed them, and afterwards captured many of their possessions and 
cities. He was followed by Vikramaditya who was either a brother 
or a son of his.”* ‘The bungling here of a Bhoja before Vikramaditya 
of the Samvat era, of Vikramaditya himself, and of the Bhoja of the 
10th century, is self-evident and needs no comment. A Bengali 
romance named Bhanumati makes a Bhoja the father-in-law of 
Vikrama. 
No monumental evidence exists of any of these five princes, and 
they are interesting only as affording a strong proof in favour of the 
antiquity of their name. The last two, namely, those of the Orissan 
chronicles and of Bhanumati, appear to be entirely mythical. I may 
say the same of three sovereigns of Bengal whose names occur in 
Pere Teiffenthaler’s history of Orissa.t Two of them, viz. Raja 
Bhoja with a reign of 75 years, and Samat Bhoja with a reign of 48, 
are said to have belonged to the family of Gor, and the last, Raja 
Bhoja, of a Kayastha family, who reigned 70 years, was the third in 
descent from Prataparudra.f{ Their names are so mixed up with 
those of the kings of Orissa, and so overcast by a misty atmosphere 
of fable, that they can claim no attention from the sober historian. 
Most of the reigns given by the Reverend Missionary, range from 
70*to 108 years. 
* Sterling’s History of Cuttack, Asiatic Researches, Vol. XV. p. 259. 
+ Description Historique et Geographique de l’Inde, Vol. I. p. 472. 
{ Sterling’s list has (1) Pertapa rudra (1502 A. C.), 2, Govinda Rao (1524), 3, 
Narasinha Janna, (1539), 4, Mukunda Deo, (1550). 
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