Bhojshala

The Bhojshala (IAST: Bhojaśālā, ) is a historic building located in the city of Dhar, in the state of Madhya Pradesh, India. The name is derived from the celebrated king Bhoja of the Paramāra dynasty of central India, a patron of education and the arts, to whom major Sanskrit works on poetics, yoga and architecture are attributed. The architectural parts of the building proper are of different periods but mainly date the 12th century; the Islamic domed tombs in the wider campus were added between the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries.

Overview

Bhojshala is a Monument of National Importance protected by the Archaeological Survey of India (ASI), under the '' Archaeological Sites and Remains Act, 1958''. While Hindus and Muslims sometimes claim the site and use it for their prayers, the Republic of India has ultimate juridiction. According to ASI guidelines, Muslims may pray on Friday, while Hindus may pray on Tuesday and on the festival for goddess Sarasvatī, namely Vasant Panchami. The site is open to visitors on other days. The '' Places of Worship (Special Provisions) Act, 1991'' also supports the administration and regulation of the monument, with day-to-day rules set out in the ''Ancient Monuments and Archaeological Sites and Remains Rules 1959'', published in ''The Gazette of India''.

Emergence of current terminology

The term Bhojśālā (also Bhojshala or Bhoj Shala) became linked to the building in the early twentieth century. The name was based on the poetic inscriptions and incised geometric drawings found at the site by K. K. Lele, the Superintendent of State Education and head of the archaeology department in Dhar State. Eugen Hultzsch, in his publication of the Dhār inscription of Arjunavarman in ''Epigraphia Indica'' of 1905-06, referred to a paper sent to him by Lele that described the discovery of the Sanskrit and Prakrit inscriptions at the 'Bhoja Shala' (''sic.''). The use was established at that point. A copy of Lele's paper was secured by S. K. Dikshit, who printed it in his study and translation of ''Pārijātamañjarī''. Concurrently, Captain E. Barnes reported only that the mosque was "known among the Hindoo (''sic.'') population as 'Raja Bhoja ka Madrassa', i.e. Raja Bhoja's school." C. E. Luard in his ''Gazetteer'' of 1908 also called it Raja Bhoja's school, noting the term was a "misnomer." By the 1930s, however, the term Bhojśālā was well established, with rulings issued by Dhar State referring to it under this rubric.

The term Bhojśālā cannot be in found sources from the nineteenth century or before. William Kincaid, in his "Rambles among Ruins in Central India," published in the ''Indian Antiquary'' in 1888 made no mention of the Bhojśālā, noting only the "Well of Wisdom" in front of the tomb of Kamāl al-Dīn, so called because of the number of Arabic books that had fallen into the well many years before. Kincaid was a cynical observer but he lived in Malwa for two decades and had significant antiquarian interests. The absence of the term Bhojśālā in his writing indicates was "no living tradition about the Bhojālā in the middle decades of the nineteenth century" among those with whom he interacted." John Malcolm visited Dhar and reports collecting an inscription there. This is the Rāüla vela of Roḍa, now kept in Mumbai. Of the building itself, Malcolm only says that is a "ruined mosque."

King Bhoja

King Bhoja, who ruled between ''circa'' 1000 and 1055 CE in central India, is considered one of the greatest kings in the Indian tradition. He was a celebrated patron of arts, and out of reverence for him, Hindu scholars that followed traditionally attributed a large number of Sanskrit works on philosophy, astronomy, grammar medicine, yoga, architecture and other subjects to him. Of these, a well studied and influential text in the field of poetics is ''Śṛṅgaraprakāśa''. The core premise of the work is that Sringara is the fundamental and motivating impulse in the universe.

Along with his literary and art support, Bhoja began constructing a Shiva temple at Bhojpur. If it had been completed to the extent he planned, the temple would have been double the size of the Hindu temples at the Khajuraho Group of Monuments. The temple was partially completed, and the epigraphical evidence confirms that Bhoja founded and built Hindu temples.

One of Bhoja's successors was king Arjunavarman (''circa'' 1210-15). He and many others, in Hindu and Jain traditions, held Bhoja in such high regard that they stated or were revered as a reincarnation (rebirth) of Bhoja or Bhoja-like ruler. Centuries later, Bhoja remained a revered figure as evidenced by Merutuṅga's '' Prabandhacintāmaṇi'' completed in the early fourteenth century, and Ballāla's ''Bhojaprabandha'' composed at Varanasi in the 17th century. This tradition continued, and in the 20th century, Hindu scholars described Bhoja as an example of the glorious past of their historic culture and a part of Hindu identity.

Exploration and inscriptions

The archaeological sites at Dhār, especially the inscriptions, attracted the early attention of colonial Indologists, historians and administrators. Malcolm mentioned Dhār in 1822, along with building projects such as the dams planned and completed by King Bhoja. The scholarly study on the inscriptions of Bhojśālā continued in the late nineteenth century with the efforts of Bhau Daji in 1871. A fresh page was turned in 1903 when K. K. Lele, Superintendent of Education in the Princely State of Dhār, reported a number of Sanskrit and Prakrit inscriptions in the walls and floor of the pillared hall at Kamāl Maula. Study of the inscriptions has been continued by various scholars to the present. The variety and size of the inscribed tablets at the site, among them two serpentine inscriptions giving grammatical rules of the Sanskrit language, show that materials were brought from a wide area and a number of different structures.

''Rāüla vela'' of Roḍa

Malcolm mentioned that he removed an inscribed panel from the Kamāl Maula. This is the inscription now described as the Rāüla vela of Roḍa, a unique poetic work in the earliest forms of Hindi. This inscription was kept first in The Asiatic Society of Mumbai and was later transferred to the Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj Vastu Sangrahalaya in Mumbai.

The ''Kūrmaśataka''

Among the inscriptions found by K. K. Lele was a tablet with a series of verses in Prakrit praising the Kūrma or Tortoise incarnation of the god Viṣṇu. The ''Kūrmaśataka'' is attributed to king Bhoja but the palaeography of the record itself suggests that this copy was engraved in the twelfth or thirteenth century. The text was published by Richard Pischel in 1905–06, with a new version and translation appearing in 2003 by V. M. Kulkarni. The inscription is currently on display inside the building.

The ''Vijayaśrīnāṭikā''

Another inscription found by K. K. Lele is part of a drama called ''Vijayaśrīnāṭikā'' composed by Madana. The preceptor of king Arjunavarman, Madana bore the title 'Bālasarasvatī'. The inscription reports that the play was performed before Arjunavarman in the temple of Sarasvatī. This suggests that the inscription could have come from the site of a Sarasvatī temple. The inscription is currently on display inside the building.

Grammatical inscriptions

The building also contains two serpentine grammatical inscriptions. These records prompted K. K. Lele to describe the building as the Bhojśālā or Hall of Bhoja because king Bhoja was the author of a number of works on poetics and grammar, among them the ''Sarasvatīkaṇṭhābharaṇa'' or 'Necklace of Sarasvatī'.

Rāja Bhoja's Sarasvatī

In 1924, some two decades after Lele identified the Bhojaśālā with the Kamāl Maula, O. C. Gangoly and K. N. Dikshit published an inscribed sculpture in the British Museum, announcing that it was Rāja Bhoja's Sarasvatī from Dhār. This analysis was broadly accepted and had a significant impact. The statue in the British Museum was often misidentified as Bhoja's Sarasvatī in the years that followed.

The inscription on the sculpture mentions king Bhoja and Vāgdevī, another name for Sarasvatī.Harivallabh Bhayani