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.
[2.] Boddhisattva. See p. 342 and p. 365.
The False Friend.
[1.] Compare this story with that given Nights 589–593 of Arabian Nights. (Jülg.)
[2.] That the jewel-merchant had no written proof of the trust he had committed to his friend would appear quite in conformity with actual custom, at least in primitive times. Megasthenes has left testimony (Strabo xv. i. 53, p. 709), quoted by Schwanbeck (Megas. Ind. p. 113), in favour of the general uprightness of the Indians and their little inclination to litigation, which he bases on the fact that it was the custom to take no acknowledgment under seal or writing of money or jewels entrusted to another, or even to call witnesses to the fact; that the word of the man who had entrusted another with such sufficed; also Ælianus, V. H. iv. i. This, notwithstanding that the Manu (dh. c. viii. 180) contains provisions for regulating such transactions in due form and order; the man accordingly does not think of denying that he received the jewel, which would seem the easier way of concealing his fraud, because he knew the word of the jewel-merchant would be taken against his.
[3.] Stupa, a shrine; often a natural cave; often one artificially hewn; containing relics, or commemorating some incident considered sacred in the life of a noted Buddhist teacher. We read of stupas instituted at a spot where there was a tradition Shâkjamuni had left a foot-print; and another at Kapilvastu, his native place, over the spot where, as we saw in his life, he was led to devote himself to serious contemplations by meeting a sick man, &c. When of imposing proportion it was called a mâhastûpa. When such monuments on the other hand were put together with stones (usually pyramidal in form) they were called dhâtugopa, whence Europeans give them the name of Dagobas. The word Pagoda, with which we are familiar, is probably derived from the Sanskrit bhâgavata = “Worthy to be venerated.” The syllable ava was transformed in Prakrit into o, and the ta into da. The Portuguese took the word as applied to religious edifices as distinguished from the kaitja[66], or rock-hewn temples. The word pagoda, however, is usually reserved for Brahmanical temples. The word stupa has now become corrupted into tope, by which word you will find it designated by modern writers on India. The etymology of the word makes it mean much the same as tumulus, but kaitja conveys further the meaning that it was a sacred place.
[4.] The notion of jewels being endowed with talismanic properties is common in Eastern story. Ktesias (Fragm. lvii. 2, p. 79) mentions a celebrated Indian magic jewelled seal-ring called Pantarba, which had the property when thrown into the water of attracting to it other jewels, and that a merchant once drew out one hundred and seventy-seven other jewels and seals by its means.