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The Judgment-Seat of Vikramaditya

For many centuries in Indian history there was no city so famous as the city of Ujjain. It was always renowned as the seat of learning. Here lived at one time the poet Kalidas, one of the supreme poets of the world, fit to be named with Homer and Dante and Shakespeare, And here worked and visited, only a hundred and fifty years ago, an Indian king, who was also a great and learned astronomer, the greatest of his day. Rajah Jey Singh of Jeypore. So one can see what a great love all who care for India must feel for the ancient city of Ujjain.

But deep in the hearts of the Indian people, one name is held even dearer than those I have mentioned—the name of Vikramaditya, who became King of Malwa, it is said, in the year 57 before Christ. How many, many years ago must that be ! But so clearly is he remembered, that to this day when a Hindu wants to write a letter, after putting something religious at the top—"The Name of the Lord," or "Call on the Lord," or something of the sort—and after writing his address, as we all do in beginning a letter,