Kalidasa, Bhoja, and Vikramaditya

[Radhakrishna Warrier]

There is this well-known story of Kalidasa’s spontaneous response in poetry to the news of the demise of his friend Rājā Bhoja:

अद्य धारा निराधारा निरालम्बा सरस्वती |

पण्डिताः खण्डिताः सर्वे भोजराजे दिवं गते ||

And when he learns that the news is not true and that king Bhoja is alive and well, he changes his response to

अद्य धारा सदाधारा सदालम्बा सरस्वाती |

पण्डिताः मण्डिताः सर्वे भोजराजे भुवं गते ||

The Malayalam work Aitihyamāla by Koṭṭārattil Śaṅkuṇṇi (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kottarathil_Sankunni, 1855-1937) also recounts this story.  Here is the chapter on Kālidāsa from an online edition of this work for those who can read Malayalam:

https://ml.wikisource.org/wiki/%E0%B4%90%E0%B4%A4%E0%B4%BF%E0%B4%B9%E0%B5%8D%E0%B4%AF%E0%B4%AE%E0%B4%BE%E0%B4%B2/%E0%B4%95%E0%B4%BE%E0%B4%B3%E0%B4%BF%E0%B4%A6%E0%B4%BE%E0%B4%B8%E0%B5%BB

The question is, which Rājā Bhoja is this?  The well-known Rājā Bhoja of Dhārā (present day Dhar in Madhya Pradesh, not far from Ujjain and Devas) is the Paramāra king who ruled the Malwa region with Dhārā as his capital from 1010 to 1055 CE.  Kālidāsa could not have been his contemporary.   Kālidāsa’s time would have been roughly a thousand years before Rājā Bhoja.

Kālidāsa is also supposed to have been one of the nava-ratna-s (nine jewels) of the court of Vikramāditya.  The well-known Vikramāditya in Indian history is Candragupta Vikramāditya of the Gupta dynasty.  There is the also the Vikramāditya who is the originator of the Vikrama Samvat.  Then there is the hero of the many Vikramāditya stories including the famous Vikramāditya – Vetala stories.

There is also a story of Rājā Bhoja finding an old, dusty throne on which children were playing and when children were seated on the throne, they were delivering surprisingly apt judgements.  He takes the throne to his capital city with an intention to use it as his “judgement” seat.  But when trying to ascend the throne, the figurines of guardian angels on either side of the steps of the throne came to life and stopped him from ascending it, saying the throne originally belonged to Vikramāditya and he (Bhoja) had not yet earned enough merit to ascend it. This story is narrated in the above mentioned Aitihyamāla.  Is this Bhoja the same as the Paramāra king Bhoja?

So, the question is, was Kalidāsa a contemporary of a king named Bhoja or was he a contemporary of a king who later came to be known as Vikramāditya? If the Bhoja or Vikramāditya are different persons than the historical Paramāra king or the historical Gupta king, who are they?  Are they one and the same person?

Regards,

Radhakrishna Warrier