Bhojshala Temple (IAST: Bhojaśālā, ) is a temple complex, located in Dhar, Madhya Pradesh, India, initially established during the reign of 11th century Paramāra king, Raja Bhoja, as a center of Sanskrit learning. In 1875, the British surveyed the complex, and an idol of deity Vagdevī (Jain Ambika Yakshini) was excavated. The courtyard includes a centrally located Hindu Yajna site. In 2026, the Madhya Pradesh High Court declared that Bhojshala was a Hindu temple complex dedicated to the Devi Saraswati, based on the archaeological survey, historical literature and architectural evidences (with a claim that Hindus and Jains are not distinct entities in India).
In 2024, a survey conducted by the Archaeological Survey of India uncovered many relics associated with Hindu iconography, including pillars and sculptures, indicating the presence of pre-existing temple architecture. Under the Parmara dynasty, Bhojshala complex is considered to have housed a large Sanskrit University, comparable to the ancient Nalanda mahavihara and Taxila University. It was a center of learning which included spiritual disciplines, as evidenced by a large assembly hall with a Yajna sacred fire pit (haven kund) in the courtyard, surrounded by pillars carved with deities and Sanskrit inscriptions.
The monument was repaired in the 18th century by the Pawar rulers of the Dhar Maratha State and, more extensively, by ASI after 1947.A detailed account given in Alok Tripathi et al, Report on Scientific Investigations, Survey and Excavations at Bhojshala Temple cum Kamal Maula Mosque Complex, Dhar (Madhya Pradesh), 10 volumes (Archaeological Survey of India, 2024). According to some historians, the architectural parts of the building proper are of different periods but mainly date to the twelfth and thirteenth centuries; the Islamic domed tombs in the wider campus were added between the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries.
Bhojshala is considered a monument of national importance in India and is open to visitors and tourists. The temple deity Vagdevi is also revered by Jains. Large number of Hindu and Jain devotees come regularly to the temple complex, with special celebrations on Vasant Panchami festival.
Overview
Bhojshala is a Monument of National Importance protected by the Archaeological Survey of India (ASI), under the Archaeological Sites and Remains Act, 1958. On May 15, 2026, the Madhya Pradesh High Court noted that the religious character of Bhojshala was that of a Hindu temple, as historical records indicate that it was a "Center of Sanskrit learning”, and had a "temple dedicated to the goddess Saraswati” at the historical complex.
An idol of the deity Ambika Yakshini (Goddess Saraswati), also considered the attendant deity of 22nd Jain Tirthankar Neminath, according to some Jain sources,https://www.artgallery.nsw.gov.au/collection/works/319.2005/#about was excavated under the British in 1875 from the greater Bhojshala complex area. Some historians claim that the Ambika idol was found in the city hall around the Bhojshala complex.M. Willis. “Dhār, Bhoja and Sarasvatī: From Indology to Political Mythology and Back.” Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society 22, no. 1 (2012): 129–53. DOI: https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.1154197. An ASI survey of the complex in 2024 revealed sculptures and iconography linked to Jainism and Hinduism, and unearthed artifacts included Jain Tirthankara-linked iconography as well as idols of Hindu deities like Ganesha, Brahma, Narasimha, Hanuman, Saraswati, and Krishna.
Previously, Hindus, Jains, and Muslims claimed the site and used it for their prayers, and according to ASI guidelines in 2003, Hindus and Jains were permitted to offer prayers every Tuesday, while Muslims could pray there every Friday. The site is also open to visitors and tourists. In 2024, noted archaeologist KK Muhammed, formerly associated with ASI, claimed that the Bhojshala complex was originally a Saraswati temple and that there were later attempts to convert it into an Islamic place of worship.
The Bhojshala temple complex is considered to have been built in the 11th century during the reign of Raja Bhoj, and several officials of British India in the early 1900's recorded that the Kamal Maula mosque stood on an occupied site of the Bhojshala complex.
Emergence of current terminology While Bhoja has long been linked to the complex, the term Bhojshala became associated with the building only in 1903, due to the efforts of K. K. Lele, the Superintendent of State Education and head of the archaeology department in Dhar State. He based the name on the poetic inscriptions and incised geometric drawings found at the site.M. Willis. “Dhār, Bhoja and Sarasvatī: From Indology to Political Mythology and Back.” Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society 22, no. 1 (2012): 129–53. DOI: https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.1154197. C. E. Luard and K. K. Lele, The Paramāras of Dhār and Mālwā (Bombay: British India Press, 1908), also sets out Lele's thinking regarding the building. Eugen Hultzsch, in his publication of the Dhār inscription of Arjunavarman in Epigraphia Indica of 1905-06, referred to a paper sent to him by Lele that described the discovery of the Sanskrit and Prakrit inscriptions at the 'Bhoja Shala'. The use was established at that point. A copy of Lele's 1903 paper was secured by S. K. Dikshit, who printed it in his study and translation of Pārijātamañjarī. Captain E. Barnes, writing in 1904, reported only that the mosque was "known among the Hindoo (sic.) population as 'Raja Bhoja ka Madrassa', i.e. Raja Bhoja's school." C. E. Luard in his Gazetteer of 1908 also called it Raja Bhoja's school.C. E. Luard, Western States (Mālwā) Gazetteer, Volume V.- Part A, Text, (Bombay: Printed at the British India Press, Byculla, 1908), p. 498. URL: https://archive.org/details/in.ernet.dli.2015.206907/page/n583/mode/. Luard calls the term was a "misnomer," but does not explain what he means by this. By the 1930s, the term Bhojshala was established, with rulings issued by Dhar State referring to it under this rubric.
William Kincaid, in his "Rambles among Ruins in Central India," published in the Indian Antiquary in 1888 mentions a number of local legends about Bhoja and his public works.William Kincaid, “Rambles among Ruins in Central India,” The Indian Antiquary 17 (1888): 348-52. DOI: https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.5233055. Kincaid lived in Malwa for two decades and had significant antiquarian interests. The absence of the term Bhojshala in his writing indicates there was "no living tradition about the Bhojśālā in the middle decades of the nineteenth century." Several decades before Kincaid, John Malcolm visited Dhār and reports collecting an inscription there, but he, like other nineteenth century writers, does not use the term Bhojshala.
Exploration and inscriptions
The archaeological sites at Dhār, especially the inscriptions, attracted the early attention of colonial Indologists, historians and administrators. Malcolm mentioned Dhār in 1822, along with building projects such as the dams planned and completed by King Bhoja. The scholarly study on the inscriptions of Bhojśālā continued in the late nineteenth century with the efforts of Bhau Daji in 1871. A fresh page was turned in 1903 when K. K. Lele, Superintendent of Education in the Princely State of Dhār, reported a number of Sanskrit and Prakrit inscriptions in the walls and floor of the pillared hall at Kamāl Maula. Study of the inscriptions has been continued by various scholars to the present. The variety and size of the inscriptions at the site, among them two serpentine records giving grammatical rules of the Sanskrit language from the time of Naravarman, show that materials were brought from a wide area and a number of different structures. In 2024, the Archaeological Survey of India undertook comprehensive documentation of the site, with one volume of the report providing a census of the inscriptions.Alok Tripathi et al, Report on Scientific Investigations, Survey and Excavations at Bhojshala Temple cum Kamal Maula Mosque Complex, Dhar (Madhya Pradesh), 10 vols. (Archaeological Survey of India, 2024).
Rāüla vela of Roḍa Malcolm mentioned that he removed an inscribed panel from the minbar of the Kamāl Maula. This is the inscription now identified as the Rāüla vela of Roḍa, a unique poetic work in the earliest forms of Hindi. This inscription was kept first in The Asiatic Society of Mumbai and was later transferred to the Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj Vastu Sangrahalaya in Mumbai.
The Kūrmaśataka Among the inscriptions found by K. K. Lele was a tablet with a series of verses in Prakrit praising Kūrma. This is not the well-known Kūrma incarnation of the god Viṣṇu, but rather the primal tortise or Ādikūrma. The Kūrmaśataka is attributed to king Bhoja but the palaeography of the record itself suggests that this copy was engraved in the thirteenth century, probably in the time of Arjunavarman. The text was published by Richard Pischel in 1905–06, with a new version and translation appearing in 2003 by V. M. Kulkarni. The inscription is currently on display inside the building.
The Vijayaśrīnāṭikā Another inscription found by K. K. Lele in 1903 is part of a drama called Vijayaśrīnāṭikā composed by Madana. The preceptor of king Arjunavarman, Madana bore the title 'Bālasarasvatī'.S. K. Dishit, Pārijātamañjarī alias Vijayaśrī by Rāja-Guru Madana alias Bāla-Sarasvatī (Bhopal, 1963). DOI: https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.375588. The inscription opens with an invocation to Śiva and reports that the play was performed before Arjunavarman in the temple of Sarasvatī. This suggests that the inscription came from the site of a Sarasvatī temple.Luard gives the first published suggestion that the inscription indicates the Kamāl Maula stands on the site of the Sarasvatī temple: C. E. Luard, Western States (Mālwā) Gazetteer, Volume V.- Part A, Text, (Bombay: Printed at the British India Press, Byculla, 1908), p. 498. URL: https://archive.org/details/in.ernet.dli.2015.206907/page/n583/mode, an idea developed in S. K. Dishit, Pārijātamañjarī alias Vijayaśrī by Rāja-Guru Madana alias Bāla-Sarasvatī (Bhopal, 1963). DOI: https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.375588. The play refers to the temple under various names -- Bhāratī bhavana, Śāradā sadman—and says that it was “the chief temple that adorned the eighty-four cross-roads of Dhar.” Old Dhār being laid out as a grid, the main temple would have stood at the centre. Only the first two acts of the play are preserved, the final acts would have been given in a second tablet that has not been located. The inscription is currently on display inside the building, just inside the entrance.
Grammatical inscriptions: Serpentine scimitars of Udayāditya and Naravarman The building also contains two serpentine grammatical inscriptions. These records, which contain the system of Sanskrit phonology and grammar, prompted K. K. Lele to describe the building as the Bhojshala or Hall of Bhoja because king Bhoja was the author of a number of works on poetics and grammar, among them the Sarasvatīkaṇṭhābharaṇa or 'Necklace of Sarasvatī'. The colophon of the grammatical chart, however, is inscribed with the statement that it is the "unique magical sword belonging to kings Udayāditya and Naravarman, the worshippers of Śiva, for the preservation of language and society."Saarthak Singh, “Serpentine Scimitars and Sarasvati’s Speech: The Materials of Knowledge in Medieval Malwa, c.1100–1400,” Arts Asiatiques 79 (2025): 5-30. The earliest date that can be assigned to these records is thus the period of Naravarman, a Paramāra king who ruled circa 1094–1133.
Kodaṇḍakāvya and Khaḍgaśata