Page:History of India Vol 2.djvu/388

342 THE MEDIEVAL KINGDOMS OF THE NORTH of Malwa, about 1010 A. D., and reigned gloriously for more than forty years. Although his fights with the neighbouring powers, including one of the Moham- medan armies of Mahmud of Ghazni, are now forgotten, his fame as an enlightened patron of learning and a skilled author remains undimmed, and his name has RTTIXS OF THE TEMPLE OF BHOJPUR. become proverbial as that of the model king. Works on astronomy, architecture, the art of poetry, and other subjects are credibly attributed to him, and there is no doubt that he was a prince, like Samudragupta, of very uncommon ability. The great Bhojpur Lake, a beautiful sheet of water to the southeast of Bhopal, covering an area of 250 square miles, formed by massive embank-