; io Notes on the Antiquities of BhopaL [Aug, 



Bkojpoor. — I will first refer to Bhojpoor as the most southerly, or 

 as being higher up the river Betwah than the other places. Raja Bhoj, 

 of the Towar or " Puar" tribe, whose date or identity is doubtful, is 

 however believed to have represented both the race and the power of 

 Yicramaditya, and in this part of Malwa he is generally considered to 

 have flourished in the fifth century of our era. The legend related by 

 Sir John Malcolm (Central India, I. 25) is also in every one's mouth, 

 viz : that in order to mark his gratitude or his love, or to expiate the 

 sacrifice voluntarily made by his mother of her own life in giving him 

 birth, he was always bent upon accomplishing some good work, and 

 that the brahmins prescribed the erection of an embankment which 

 should arrest nine rivers and ninety-nine rivulets, probably with the 

 view of providing irrigation for a tract of country lower down the river. 

 A place was chosen close to where two of the main branches of the 

 infant Betwah unite in order to pass through a narrow gorge about 18 

 miles to the south-east of BhopaL The gorge in question was dam- 

 med across, as was likewise a hollow to the westward of the outlet. A 

 large lake, or Thai, was thus formed, which inclosed a low range of hil- 

 locks, still distinguished as " the Island" by the name of its present 

 village " Deep" (Dwipa) . The lake would appear io have been sixteen or 

 seventeen miles in length and about seven or eight miles in breadth, 

 but after all the care and labour which had been expended, it was found 

 that one stream was still wanting to complete the full number, and 

 Bhopal, the Minister of the King, suggested the embankment of a ravine 

 at the spot on which the city called after him now stands. By this 

 means a considerable rivulet which rises south-west of Bhopal, was 

 made to run south-easterly into the Betwah or into the newly formed 

 lake, instead of north-easterly into the river at Bhilsa, as until that 

 time it had done. It is to this day apparent that the rivulet in ques- 

 tion has been forced from its original channel, and it forms now the 

 real Betwah. The lake continued to exist until the erection of Malwa 

 into a kingdom by the Affghan Ghorees in the 14th and 15th centuries, 

 when it is related that Sooltan Hoshung lamented the loss of so much 

 good land, and ordered the embankment across the Betwah to be 

 destroyed. According to the common belief 360 villages now fill the 

 bed of the lake of Raja Bhoj, and it is certain that the tract in question 

 is one of the most fertile in Bhopal, 



