Vietnam or Thailand ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Updated: May 7, 2025
Local tradition is doubtless quite wrong in assigning to Raja Bikram the noble gateway which is the only monument of Hindu architecture at its best that Ujjain has to show to-day.
Was this what happened? that the peril of these northern invaders roused Malwa to exert its fullest strength; the military effort spurring up national feeling; the national feeling, creative energies spiritual, mental and imaginative; until a great age in Ujjain had come into being. It is what we often see. The menace of Spain roused England to Elizabethanism; the Persian peril awakend Athens.
The present buildings are for the most part barely 200 years old, and remarkable chiefly for the insistency with which the lingam and the bull, the favourite symbols of Shiva, repeat themselves in shrine after shrine. But it attracts immense numbers of pilgrims, especially in every twelfth year, when they flock in hundreds of thousands to Ujjain and camp as near as possible to the river.
And now at last we come to the age of King Vikramaditya of Ujjain, to the Nine Gems of Literature, to a secular era of literary creation, to the Sanskrit Drama, and to Kalidisa, its Shakespeare; and to his masterpiece, The Ring of Sakoontala. There is a tendency with us to derive all things Indian from Greek sources.
Then came a famous duel with strange weapons between a man and a giant for the sake of a woman, like the ancient fight between Rama and Ravana. Though the giant was a terrible fighter, the brave man presently cut off his head with an arrow shaped like a half-moon. When the giant was killed, they found Moonlight in the den and all went back to Ujjain in the clever man's chariot.
One of her elbows fell on the banks of the Sipra at Ujjain, and few shrines enjoy greater or more widespread fame than the great temple of Maha-Kal, consecrated to her worship and that of Shiva. Its wealth was fabulous when it was looted and destroyed by Altamsh and his Pathan Mahomedans in 1235.
But in all this region the Sammitîya sect which apparently was nearer to Hinduism than the others was the most important. In Ujjain Buddhism was almost extinct but in many of the western states it lingered on, perhaps only in isolated monasteries, until the twelfth century. But further north the faith had to endure the violence of strangers.
The native historian adds: 'when Mubárak Sháh, the ruler of Khándesh, 'received this gracious communication, he was greatly delighted, and he sent his daughter with a suitable retinue and paraphernalia to his Majesty, esteeming it a great favour to be allowed to do so. After a short stay at Mándu, Akbar returned to Agra, by way of Ujjain, Sarangpur, Siprí, Narwár, and Gwalior.
We gather from the account of the Chinese pilgrim Hsüan Chuang, who visited his court at Kanauj, that the kings of Bengal, Assam and Ujjain were his vassals but that the Panjab, Sind and Kashmir were independent. Kalinga, to the south of Bengal, was depopulated but Harsha was not able to subdue Pulakeśin II, the Câlukya king of the Deccan. Let us now turn for a moment to the history of the south.
The flat blob at the top seems to crush down the vague aspirings of the cucumber, which, even if unstopped, must erelong have ended in an earthward curve again." The age culminated in the next reign, that of Chandragupta II Vikramaditya. Heaven knows how to distingusih between him and his half-mythological namesake of B.C. 58 and Ujjain.
Word Of The Day
Others Looking