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XI.] But perhaps there was no period in the history of Indian literature and science in which so liberal a patronage was given to learning in general, and to poetry and medicine in particular, as in the reign of King Bhoja of Dhar ( 977). It was a golden age of Hindoo literature. The king was a learned man himself, and is the reputed author of a treatise on medicine and other works. Pandit Ballala, in his Bhoja-prabandha, or a collection of literary anecdotes relating to King Bhoja, describes an interesting surgical operation performed on the king, who was suffering from severe pain in the head. He tried all medicinal means, but to no purpose, and his condition became most critical, when two brother physicians happened to arrive in Dhar, who, after carefully considering the case, came to the conclusion that the patient would obtain no relief until surgically treated. They accordingly administered a drug called to render him insensible. When the patient was completely under the influence of the drug, they trephined his skull, removed from the brain the real cause of complaint, closed the opening, stitched the wound, and applied a healing balm. They are then related to have administered a restorative medicine called