102 Bhoja Raja of Dhar and his Homonyms. [No. 2, 
The last sovereign on our list is the great Bhoja of Dhaéra.* Ac- 
cording to the legendary accounts of the Bhoja-Provandha, the Bhoja- 
Champu and the Bhoja-Charita, he was the son of Sindhula, the 
grandson of Sindhu and the immediate successor of Munja. His country, 
Malava, was an ancient and renowned seat of learning, and his people 
were noted for their refined manners and high civilization. Hiouen- 
Thsang, who visited the place in the seventh century, says “les 
habitants des province sont d’un caractére douz et poli, et ils aiment et 
estiment la culture des lettres. Dans les cing parties de ’Inde, * * * 
ce pays et celui de Magadha, sont les deux seuls royaumes dont les 
habitants se fassent remarquer par amour de I’étude, V’estime pour la 
vertu, la facilité de ’élocution et l’harmonie du langage.”} Kalidasa, 
on a much earlier date, sang of its glories in more than one of his 
immortal works. 
Munja, according to Ballalat the author of the Bhoja-Pravandha, 
was the younger brother of Sindhula who bestowed the kingdom 
upon him in supercession of his son who was then only five years 
old, and utterly incompetent to assume the cares of state. The 
Bhoja-Charita contradicts this statement and makes Munja a found- 
ling who was brought home by Sindhu to be nursed by his wife 
Padmavati. Sindhu, says the fabler, was out on a hunting expedition, 
and when alone on the bank of a river found on a tuft of Munja 
grass, (Saccharum munja, Rox.) a new-born babe, which he brought 
home and reared up under the name of Munja. The two biographers 
agree in giving Bhoja a long and prosperous reign of fifty-five years, 
seven months and three days, interrupted only fora short period when 
a jog or mendicant, under pretence of teaching him the art of trans- 
ferring one’s soul from one body to another, sent the king’s soul to 
animate the body of a parrot and himself entered the king’s body 
and reigned in his stead. An accident enabled Bhoja, through the 
intervention of Chandrasena of Chandravati, to regain his mortal coil 
from the usurper, and he died a natural death, leaving his kingdom 
to his adopted son Gajananda.§ The latter was childless, and with 
zm 
* The Raja-martanda gives Ranaravgamalla as an alias of this Bhoja- 
; Histoire de la vie et des voyages de Hiouen-Thsang, p, 204. 
{ Vallabha Pundit according to same MSS. His time has been supposed to 
have been A. C, 1340. Mons. M. Pavie has published a translation of this work 
in the Journal Asiatique for March, April, 1844, p. 184, ef seq. 
§ The name has been differently given in different places. 
