King Bhoja
Paramara king of Malwa and scholar-patron, c. 1010–1055
- Dynasty
- Paramara
- Capital
- Dhara (modern Dhar, Madhya Pradesh)
- Reign
- c. 1010–1055 CE
- Works attributed
- Samarangana Sutradhara; Yuktikalpataru; Shringara-Prakasha
- Surviving monument
- Bhojeshwar Temple, Bhojpur
The 11th-century poet-king of Malwa to whom the Samarangana Sutradhara, a building manual that mentions mechanical flying devices, is attributed.
What is King Bhoja known for?
Bhoja was a king of the Paramara dynasty who ruled the Malwa region of central India from his capital at Dhara, from about 1010 to 1055 CE. He was famed as a scholar-king and a patron of poets, and he founded a center of Sanskrit learning in Dhara.
Tradition credits him with authoring or commissioning about 84 works on poetics, medicine, architecture, grammar and philosophy. They include the Shringara-Prakasha on poetics, the Yuktikalpataru on statecraft, and the Samarangana Sutradhara, a large treatise on architecture that also describes machines (yantras), including a wooden bird-like flying device. The Bhojeshwar Temple at Bhojpur, a town he founded, is the one surviving shrine that can be firmly attributed to him.
Bhoja later became the hero of many legends, comparable to those about Vikramaditya; historians treat these as having no historical basis.
The Samarangana Sutradhara, with its passages on flying machines, is traditionally attributed to him.
Mentioned on these pages
Sources
- Wikipedia, 'Bhoja'Reference
- Encyclopaedia Britannica, 'Bhoja'Reference
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