Someshvara I storms Dhara

01Bilhana’s verse

Bilhana, the Kashmiri poet at the court of Someshvara’s son Vikramaditya VI, writes in the Vikramankadevacharita that Ahavamalla stormed Dhara, and that Bhoja, the lord of Malava, fled before him. Chalukya inscriptions of the 1040s and 1050s add that the king burnt Dhara and took Ujjayini and Mandu. Bhoja was then one of the most famous kings in India, a scholar-king whose capital was celebrated for its learning, so the sack was a great prize for Chalukya poets.

02A short occupation

The Chalukyas did not hold Malwa. Bhoja returned to Dhara and reigned there for some years more; his Bhojshala, the hall of learning dedicated to Devi Sarasvati, stood as his monument. Someshvara’s raid was part of a long contest in which Bhoja’s enemies closed in from every side. Around 1055 the Kalachuri Lakshmikarna and the Chaulukya Bhima I invaded together, and Bhoja died as Dhara fell again.

Person · 11th century CE (fl. c. 1065–1100)BilhanaBilhana left Kashmir as a young scholar, wandered the courts of north and west India, and became chief pandit to Vikramaditya VI at Kalyani. His Vikramankadevacharita is a verse life of that king, and his Chaurapanchashika, fifty love poems that each begin ‘even now’, has been copied and painted for centuries.Read →