Navaratnas

Navaratnas Nauratan (Sanskrit dvigu nava-ratna- or "nine gems") was a term applied to a group of nine extraordinary people in an emperor's court in India. The well-known Navaratnas include the ones in the courts of the legendary emperor Vikramaditya and the Mughal emperor Akbar.

Vikramaditya's Navaratnas

Vikramaditya is a legendary emperor, who is said to have ruled from Ujjain. According to folk tradition, his court had 9 famous scholars.

The earliest source that mentions this legend is Jyotirvidabharana (22.10), a treatise attributed to Kalidasa. According to this text, the following 9 scholars (including Kalidasa himself) attended Vikramaditya's court:

However, Jyotirvidabharana is considered a literary forgery of a date later than Kalidasa by multiple scholars.V. V. Mirashi dates the work to 12th century, and points out that it could not have been composed by Kalidasa, because it contains grammatical faults. There is no mention of such "Navaratnas" in earlier literature. D. C. Sircar calls this tradition "absolutely worthless for historical purposes".