Paramaara rajput

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Srinivasan Kalyanaraman <kalyan97@g...> wrote:

 

rAja bhoja: the glory and tragedy of the setting Hindu Sun By Hauma

Hamiddha <http://www.india-forum.com/authors/17/Hauma-Hamiddha> |

Published

12/17/2005 |

Hauma Hamiddha

 

 

View all articles by Hauma

Hamiddha<http://www.india-forum.com/authors/17/Hauma-Hamiddha>

rAja bhoja: the glory and tragedy of the setting Hindu Sun

bhoja's military and political career

 

The paramAra rAjpUts are supposed to have arisen from the

sacrificial pit on

arbuda parvata, which was the source of many kShatriyas who were

generated

by the devas for the destruction of the turuShkas and mlechChas who

were a

pestilence on Aryavarta. In historical reality paramAras were a

subsidiary

branch of the rAShTrakUTas, who were appointed as governors of

central India

in mAlava province by the main ruling branch. The paramAra rAjputs

founded

the notable city of dhArA in central India, which remained their

capital

until its ultimate conquest. It was here that their greatest king

and a

remarkable genius, bhoja rAja came to power by 1000 AD and ruled for

more

than half a century. He was the son of sindhurAja, who was notable

conqueror, who defeated the chAlukyas, hUNas and shilaharas of the

Konkan

region. bhoja's path was similar to other great Hindu rulers of the

time

engaged in wasteful intercine struggles for supremacy. We get some

glimpses

of his remarkable life from the apocryphal biography bhoja

prabandhaM. Early

in his career, just before he came to power, bhoja was afflicted by

a tumor

in his brain which used to cause him intense head aches. Two learned

brahmin

brothers from the school of Ujjain, who were pre-eminent surgeons of

the

era, performed a surgery on his brain and relieved him of his tumor.

The

description of the surgery that survives suggests that they

artificially

induced a coma with a special preparation known as the sammohini and

then

opened his skull to remove the tumor. He was then brought back to

consciousness with another drug.

 

bhoja survived this surgery remarkably well and had an illustrious

reign

both as a military commander and encylopaedic scholar. bhoja long

desired to

reduce his arch-rivals the chAlukyas of the Deccan and initiated

several

successful campaigns again them. Then he tried a remarkable

political game

to destroy the chAlukyas: by forming an alliance with the choLa king

rAjendra, bhoja induced him to attack the chAlukyas from the south.

Likewise

he induced the kalachuri king kumara gA~Ngeyadeva (who claimed

descent from

the haihayas who had survived the ancient assault of the bhArgavas)

to

attack the chAlukyas from the east. bhoja himself pressed on them

from the

north. For this purpose he erected the mighty fortifications of

mANDu and

intially put the chAlukyas on the retreat. But the chAlukyas,

suddenly

reviving the glory that pulakeshin-II had taken them to, remained

firm in

the 3 front war, eventually causing bhoja's allies to give up.

someshvara,

the chAlukya subsequently invaded the paramAra kingdom and stormed

the fort

of mANDu after a long siege, then took Ujjain, and finally captured

dhAra

the capital of bhoja from him. bhoja unfazed retreated north and

with the

help of rAjendra choLa who kept the pressure from the south, took

back dhAra

and ujjain. Then bhoja conquered chitrakUTa (Chittor) and medhapATha

(Mewar)

from the shishodias and established his sway over the arbuda fort

(Mount

Abu).

 

rAja bhoja then organized his armies to attack Mahmud Ghaznavi who

had

invaded Somnath. Ghaznavi fearing the powerful army of bhoja

retreated via

the desert of sindh to avoid a clash (reported by Turkic author

Gardizi as

Hindu padishaw parmar dev) with the hindu king and lost many of his

men.

bhoja repulsed the ghaznavid Masu'd who lead a huge army into India

to

attack the rich inner cities which his father had failed to raid.

Then bhoja

realizing the national threat from Islam, organized a confedration

of Hindu

kings including the kalachuri lakShmI-karNa, the ChahamAna and other

rAjpUts

to fight the Ghaznavid Maliq Salar Masud. In the great battle of

Bahraich

the Hindu confedracy fought a pitched battle for about a month with

the

Moslems and completely defeated them killing, Salar Masud in the

process.

They then went on to liberate Hansi, Thaneshvar, Nagarkot and other

cities

taken by the Ghaznavids and marched against Lahore and besieged it.

Just at

the point Lahore was about to fall to them, the Hindu kings had a

disagreement over who would own the liberated territories and their

armies

disbanded and dispersed in a huff. bhoja started fighting his

erstwhile

allies in the war against the Moslems.

 

bhoja first defeated the ChAhamAnas of shAkambharI, but the

ChAhamanas of

naDDula repulsed his attempt to take their kingdom. bhoja next tried

to

seize the kingdom of the chandellas, but they formed an alliance

with the

rAShTrakUTas of Kannauj and kachChapaghAtas of Gwalior and repulsed

him.

bhoja however, did keep the ghaznavids in check with help from his

shishodia

feudatories. bhoja then seized the territory of the western chAlukya

bhIma

of Gujarat. bhIma unfazed by this formed an alliance with the

haihaya,

lakShmI-karNa to attack bhoja in a two front war on both east and

west.

bhoja was caught in the pincer grip, and while fighting his two

enemies he

was shot down by an arrow on the battle field. Thus, the great rAja

bhoja

having spent his career in numerous campaigns had fallen like a true

kShatriya in the defense of his capital.

 

Hence its said that when he was alive the poets would say:

 

"adya dhArA sadAdhArA sadAlambA sarasvatI |

paNDitAH maNDitAH sarve bhojarAje bhuvaM gate ||"

Today dhArA is ever supported, and the Goddess Sarasvati is ever

propped up.

All the pundits are adorned with the coming of king Bhoja on this

earth.

 

When he fell in the defending dhArA from his rivals they said:

 

"adya dhArA nirAdhArA nirAlambA sarasvatI |

paNDitAH khaNDitAH sarve bhojarAje divaM gate ||"

Today dhArA is unsupported, and the Goddess Sarasvati is without a

prop. All

the pundits are scattered with the ascent of king Bhoja to heaven.

 

bhoja the genius

 

An analysis of bhoja's military campaigns show that he was

undoubtedly a

good general in war and was studded with many major victories over

rival

rAjas and Islamic marauders. His military career was however, hardly

any

greater than his equally warlike and militarily successful

contemporaries

such as rAjendra choLa or lakShmI-karNa kalachuri or someshvara

chAlukya.

Yet rAja bhoja is remembered much more than any of these

contemporaries of

his and is often compared with the illustrious vikramAditya of the

golden

gupta era. His name is a household one amongst all brought up in the

sanskritic culture. Why is this so?

 

The main reason for this is that Hindus have always remembered

philosphers,

poets and scholars much more than kings merely decorated with

military

success. A king who did good to the people was much more embedded in

the

collective memory of the Hindus than a king who conquered vast

territories.

rAja bhoja definitely stood out in this regard as one of historical

India's

most remarkable intellectuals with an astonishing variety of

interests and

oceanic knowledge.

 

bhoja rAja constructed several spectacular temples, one of the most

dramatic

of which is seen in the form of the great temple of shiva termed

bhojeshvara

at bhojapura a some distance from the modern city of Bhopal. Another

notable

construction, which is a historical civil engineering masterpiece,

is the

bhoja lake which was built by daming and channelizing the Betwa

river. He is

also supposed to have paid great attention to the education of his

people,

so much so that even humble weavers in kingdom are supposed to have

composed

metrical sanskrit kAvyas. In addition to patronizing the ancient

schools in

ujjaini he also built a large university in bhojapura with an

attached

temple of sarasvatI in 1034 CE . This university was apparently

attended by

1400 advanced students, and also housed a number of noted sanskrit

writers

and poets such as uvaTa and dhanapAla. The university was later

destroyed by

Dilaawar Khan Ghori and Mahmud Khalji during their invasions of

Malava. The

sarasvatI idol from the temple was taken by the Britons to the

museum in

London.

 

rAja bhoja also wrote 84 books during his life of which several

survive and

we shall summarize a few below to illustrate the remarkable breadth

of his

knowledge and originality:

 

sarasvati kaNThabharaNa: a treatise on Sanskrit grammar for poetic

and

rhetorical compositions. Some of the poetic examples provided by him

in this

work are still appreciated as the highest cream of Sanskrit poetry.

 

rAjamArtANda (pata~Njali yoga sUtra bhAshya): Major commentary on

the yoga

sUtras of pata~Njali, wherein the rAja clearly explains various

forms of

meditations such as savitarka, savichAra, sAnanda and sAsmita, which

are

critical for understanding the nature of cognition from the view

point of

yoga.

 

samarangaNa-sUtradhara: A treatise on civil engineering detailing

construction of buildings, forts, temples, idols of deities and

mechanical

devices including a so called flying machine or glider. It is

composed

largely in the anuShTubh meter and in about 83 chapters.

 

tattva-prakAsha: A remarkable siddhAnta tantra work providing a

synthesis of

the entire ancient and voluminous literature of the siddhanta

tantras of

shiva. It was the basis of all subsequent developments of the

siddhantic

pAshupata streams that followed.

 

rasa-rAja-mR^igA~nka: A treatise on chemistry, especially dealing

with the

extraction of metals from ores, and production of various drugs.

 

jyotiSha-rAja-mR^igA~nka: A treatise on astronomy and construction of

instruments for astronomical observations.

 

yuktikalpataru: A technological manual describing the construction

of ships

for naval warfare and the making of glass amongst other things.

 

shR^i~NgAra prakAsha: A treatise on Hindu erotics.

 

dharmashAstra vR^itti: A commentary on the Hindu legalistic

literature.

 

champU rAmAyaNa: A re-narration of the rAmAyaNa in mixture of prose

and

poetry, which characterizes the champUs. The description of hanumat's

qualities are particularly poetic.

 

 

The classical Hindu twilight and modern India

 

Perusing bhoja's surviving works one sees that the Hindu world just

prior to

its eclipse by the violent Islamic whirlwind from Central Asia was

not one

on its decline. On the contrary, due geniuses like bhoja, it was in

the peak

in of achievements in terms of arts, technology and science. Yet,

this India

and its illustrious rulers were almost opaque to impending doom that

loomed

large. Some authors have attributed to this to regionalism or the

lack of a

national Hindu spirit. This was not entirely lacking as evidenced by

the

confedration that overthrew the Ghaznavids. Yet, the fact that these

illustrious rulers were pulling down each other even as their common

enemy

Mahmud was savaging North India is rather striking. Another

paradoxical

point to note is that a rAja bhoja became a pan-Indian epitome of a

great

ruler from the Tamil country to Kashmir. This suggests that the

cultural

unity of greater India remained intact even in this period--there

were

indeed figures who capable of being pan-Indian heros even if they

were only

regional in the military achievements. Thus, there was a collective

Indian

mind, that appreciated the scholarly king, but failed to collectively

respond to the problem possed by Islam. Likewise, the kings of

bhoja's era

did not lack in courage or military skills, but remained in their

childish

coccoons of romantic military adventures even as a greater danger

threatened

to extinguish them.

 

The lesson of the twilight of classical Hindu India is a chilling

one for

modern India. The modern Indians in the same way as their ancestors

pride

themselves of their intellectual and technological achievements.

Despite the

depredations of centuries they have the vestiges of cultural unity

and

continue to have pan-India icons, howsoever crass they may be in

comparison

to the legendary rAja bhoja. But sadly they remain as naive as their

predecessors in the twilight era to the impending threats from Islam

and

Christianity.

 

http://www.india-forum.com/articles/58/1/rAja-bhoja%3A-the-glory-and-

tragedy-of-the-setting-Hindu-Sun