[Advaita-l] Fwd: The Bhoja Champu (11 Century CE) alludes to the Nandi-Hanuman identity

[V Subrahmanian]

In the extremely famous Champu Ramayana of King Bhoja, in the Sundara
Kanda, verse 47, we have the allusion to the Nandi-Hanuman identity, as
stated in the Valmiki Ramayana.

See image here:   https://groups.google.com/g/advaitin/c/GIQmp7wcEV8

The commentary cites the Valmiki verse on this.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bhoja

*Bhoja* (reigned c. 1010–1055 CE) was an Indian king
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Indian_monarchs> from the Paramara
dynasty <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paramara_dynasty>. His kingdom was
centered around the Malwa <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malwa> region
in *central
India,* where his capital Dhara-nagara
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dhara_(city)> (modern Dhar) was located.

It is popular belief that Bhoja composed only the first five kanda-s, the
Sundara Kanda being the 5th.  The Yuddha kanda was composed by others later:

https://tinyurl.com/vxfc5c2b

In the fourth verse of the Balakanda, Bhoja says that he follows Valmiki in
this condensation that is the Champu Kavya:

https://archive.org/details/in.ernet.dli.2015.347687/page/n7/mode/2up

I think this is perhaps one of the oldest condensations of VR.  If there
was a commentary of the VR by that time, which is extant now, is not known.