674 Note on an ancient Inscription from Thaneswar. [No. 7. 



styling the latter as the uncle and predecessor of the third Bhoja, 

 a statement fully borne out by the Jain MSS. of Col. Tod and the 

 authorities cited by "Wilford and Bentley. Colebrooke places the 

 celebrated "nine jewels" of Vicramaditya in the court of the third 

 Bhoja, while Prinsep, following Bentley, would have Kalidasa nourish 

 in the 5th century as a contemporary of the first king of that name. 

 If this imperfect inscription has been correctly read, these discre- 

 pancies are completely set at rest. It shows that the first Bhoja 

 lived about three and a half centuries before the time assigned 

 him by the learned historian of the Rajputs, and entirely overthrows 

 the deductions of Bentley, regarding the age of Brahma Gupta, 

 Vararuchi, and of some of the leading astronomical works of the 

 Hindus, as far as they are based upon the era of the renowned 

 sovereign of Dhara. The Bhoja of Prinsep and that of the inscrip- 

 tion are both descended from Mahendrapala, but the former is the 

 fourth, and the latter the tenth (if not more— for the last six lines 

 being defaced it is impossible to be positive) in descent from that 

 sovereign ; the intervening names too are different; they stand thus: — 



Prinsep (Tables p. 106.) Inscription. 



A. C. 

 402. Mahendrapala. Mahendrapala. 



409. Karmchandra. Jatula. 



410. Vijyananda. ? 



470. Munja. Vajrata. 



483. Bhoja. Tajnika. 



Sogga. 



Purna. 



Devaraja. 



Bamachandra. 



Bhoja. S. 179— A. C. 122. 

 Of Prithudaka, the pool, near which the inscription was engraved, 

 nothing seems to be known, and the temple which bears its name 

 and on which the inscription is recorded, although according 

 to Mr. Bowring a place of pilgrimage, is not reckoned as such in 

 the Puranas. But Kurukshetra itself, the battle-field of the Pandus, 

 on which the empire of India has been more than once contested 

 and lost, is a perfect terra incognita to the antiquarian, and would 



