________________
THE BHOJAS
369 he never returned to Kundinapura, but built a new city of the Bhojas on the site of the battle-field, and called it Bhojakata.1
Bhojakața is interpreted by Vincent Smith as 'Castle of the Bhojas'. He says that the name 'implies that the province was named after a castle formerly held by the Bhojas...' It is alluded to in the Chammak grant of the Vākāṭaka King Pravarasena II, which makes it clear that the Bhojakata territory included the Ilichpur district in Berar or Vidarbha's Bhojakața has been identified with Bhat-kuli in the Amraoti district of Berar. It is not improbable that the Bhojas had some relation with Bhojanagara, the capital of king Uśinara of the Uśinara country near the Kankhal region where the Ganges issues from the hills. In any case we may conclude that the Bhojas and the Vidarbhas were closely related. Kalidasa also calls the king of Vidarbha a Bhoja (Raghuvamsa, V, 39, 40).
4
It was said of the heroic Bhoja prince Rukmin that he was in the very front rank of the warriors of his time; the bow named Vijaya which he wielded was only equalled by the Gandiva of Arjuna and the Sarngadhanu of Krsna. This prince is said to have been equally skilled with the bow and the sword and various other weapons, but to have been inordinately proud, and because of his boastfulness, his offer of aid was refused by both sides in turn before the Kurukṣetra War. On the eve of the war he came to the battlefield at the head of one complete Akṣauhini of forces of every description.5
6
In the Sabhaparvan, we read that the whole confederacy of Anhakas, Yadavas and Bhojas abandoned Kamsa who was slain by Krsna who had been appointed to do so (niyogat). It appears from this that Krsna had at least the tacit approval of all the allied peoples who had been tyrannized over and ill-treated by Kamsa. Kamsa himself was a Bhoja, as we learn from what Krsna said to the Kurus in their assembly on the eve of the battle.7
Another tribe with which the Bhojas are associated in the great Epic are the Kukuras who were evidently members of the Vrsnicakra or confederacy of tribes 8; for we are told in the Udyogaparvan of the Bhoja king joining the Kuru forces together with the Bhojas, Andhakas and Kukuras.9 In another chapter of the Udyogaparvan
Mahabharata, Udyogaparvan, Chap. 157; see also ibid., Chap. 48, p. 74.
2 Ind. Ant., 1923, 262-3.
3 Ray Chaudhuri, P.H.A.I., 4th Edn., p. 77
4 Mahabharata, I, 85, 3533.
5 Mbh., Udyogaparvan, Chap. 157.
6 Mbh., Sabhaparvan, Chap. 62, p. 8.
7 Mbh., Udyogaparvan, Chap. 128, p. 37. 9 Mbh., Udyogaparvan, Chap. 19.
24
8 Mauṣalaparvan, Chap. I, 7.
