The name of Bhoga (also written Noe, Nauge, and Noza; the N having
entered from a careless following of the Persian historian Abulfazl,
n and b being only distinguished by a point in Persian writing; and
the z through the Portuguese, who habitually rendered the Indian g
thus) seems to have been almost as favourite an appellation as that
of Vikramâditja itself, and pretty equally surrounded with confusion
of fabulous incident.
The Bhoga were one of the mightiest dynasties of ancient India,
and the name was given to the family on account of their unbounded
prosperity; being derived from bhug = enjoyment. The most celebrated
king of the race bore a name which in our own day has become associated
with prosperous rule, Bhoga Bismarka, or Bhismarka, is celebrated
in ancient Sagas for his resistless might in the field, and was also
accounted the type of a prudent and far-sighted sovereign. Many glories
are fabled of him which I have not space to narrate, and even he only
reigned over a fourth part of the Bhoga.
The individual Bhoga, however, who is probably the subject of the
present story, and the details of whose virtues and wisdom present
particular analogies with the life of Vikramâditja is, comparatively
speaking, modern, as he reigned from A.D. 1037 to 1093 according
to some, or from 997 to 1053 according to others. He was likewise
originally King of Maláva or Malwa, and fabulous conquests and
extensions of dominion are likewise ascribed to him.
He was the greatest king of the Prâmâra dynasty, one of the four
so-called Agnikula, or "from-the-god-Agni-descended," or "fire-born"
tribes, and traced up his pedigree to a certain Paramâra, "The
destroyer of adversaries," born at the prayer of the Hermit Rishi
Vasichta on the lofty mountain of Arbuda (Arboo).
The story of this Bhoga is contained in two somewhat legendary
accounts, called (1) the Bhogaprabandha, or poetical narrative
concerning Bhoga; and (2) the Bhogakaritra, or the deeds of Bhoga. The
first was written or collected by the Pandit Vallabha about 1340. The
first part relates the circumstances concerning Bhoga's mounting the
throne, and the second part is a history of the poets and learned
men who flocked from all parts of India to his court. It tells
an intricate fable about his having been persecuted in youth by a
treacherous uncle who preceded him on the throne, but who afterwards
came to repentance, while a supernatural interposition delivered
Bhoga from all his machinations and made him master of Gauda or
Bengal, and many other parts of India. Other legends mention his
discovery of the throne of Vikramâditja, and make the figures on the
steps Apsarasas, or nymphs, who were delivered and set free by him
when he took possession of it and removed it to Dhara, whither he had
transferred his capital from Uggajini. An Inscription (given at length,
viii. 5, 6, in Journ. of As. Soc. of Bengal, v. p. 376) speaks thus
of him:--"The most prosperous king Bhogadeva was the most illustrious
of the whole generation of the Prâmâra. He attained to glory as great
as that of the destroyer (Crishna) and traversed the universe to its
utmost boundaries. His fame rose like the moonbeams over the mountains
and rivers of the regions of the earth, and before it the renown of
the inimical rulers faded away as the pale lotus-blossom is closed
up." The Persian historian Abulfazl testifies in somewhat more sober
language, that he greatly extended the frontiers of his kingdom.
His career was not one of unchecked prosperity however. According to
an Inscription he was at last subdued by his enemy, and it thus gently
tells the tale of his reverse:--"After he had attained to equality
with Vâsava (Indra) and the land was well watered with streams, his
relation Udajâditja became Ruler of the earth." His adversary being
a relation, and a Prâmâra like himself, the feud between them was
considered a scandal, and the inscription avoids perpetuating the
details of it. A legend in the Bhogakaritra supplies some. A hermit
had been rather severely judged by King Bhoga for a misdemeanour, and
condemned to ride through the streets of the capital on an ass. To
punish the king for this scandal he went into Cashmere till he had
acquired the power of making the soul of a man pass into another
body. Then he came back and constrained the soul of the king to pass
into the body of a parrot while he made his own soul pass into the
king's body; then he issued a decree commanding the slaughter of all
the parrots in the kingdom. The royal parrot, however, who was the
object of the decree, effected his escape and came to the court of
Kandrasena, where he became the pet bird of the princess his daughter;
to her he revealed the story of his transformation. At her instigation
the hermit-king was persuaded to come to Kandrasena's court to sue
for her hand, and there, by means of an intrigue of hers he was put
to death. Bhoga thus regained his original form and his kingdom.
Abulfazl celebrates his moderation and uprightness, as well as
his liberality and the encouragement he gave to men of learning,
of whom he had not less than five hundred at one time lodged in his
palace. This similarity of pursuits helped so to foster the tendency
of which I have already spoken, to confuse the deeds of one hero with
another, that one poet at least (Vararuki by name), who flourished
under Bhoga, is reckoned among the nine "jewels" of Vikramâditja's
court! Kalidasa, who was not very much, if at all later, is also
put among the protégés of Bhoga in the Bhogaprabandha. The actual
writers of any note belonging to Bhoga's age, whose names and works
have come down to us are chiefly Subandhu and Vâna, authors of two
poems entitled respectively Vâsavadattâ and Kâdambarî, of which a
reprint was issued at Calcutta in 1850. Dandi, who wrote a celebrated
drama called Dashakumârakaritra, affording a useful picture of the
manners prevailing in Hindustan and the Dekhan in his time; he also
left a treatise on the art of poetry, called Kâvjadarshâ. Another
poet of this date, named Shankara, has often been confounded with
a philosophical writer of the same name in the eighth century. The
Harivansha, a mythological poem in continuation of the Mâha Bhârata,
also belongs to this reign. Among numerous other works ascribed
to it, many of which have not yet been examined into by Europeans,
are several treatises of mathematics and astronomy. Bhoga himself is
entered in a list of the astronomers of his time, and he was said
to be the author of a treatise on medicine, called Vriddha Bhoga,
and of one on jurisprudence, called Smritishâstra.