installed at Ujjayini by the contemporary Gupta emperor. Balogh believes that Dravya-vardhana was probably same as Drapa-vardhana: "Dravya" may be a variant arising from a mistake in a medieval manuscript, which is the source of later manuscripts. Balogh disputes Shastri's assertion that Varāhamihira shows a particularly reverential attitude to the king, and even if he did, this is no evidence that the two were contemporaries. Varāhamihira consulted the king's work instead of the original work of Bharadvaja that it was based on; according to Balogh, this actually makes it more likely that the king lived at a time earlier than Varāhamihira, who did not have access to the older work of Bharadvaja. According to Balogh, Varāhamihira likely lived during the reign of the Aulikara kings Prakasha-dharman, Yashodharman, or an unknown successor of Yashodharman. However, unlike Shastri, Balogh believes that Varāhamihira did not have a royal patron. Religion Several scholars theorize that Varahamihra came from a Brahminized family of the sun-worshipping Magi priests (see see Ancestry above). He was a worshipper of the sun god Savitru, and stated that he had received all his knowledge by the grace of this god. For example, in Brhaj-jataka, he states that he was able to compose the text because of a boon by the Sun. While he mentions other deities, he devotes a much larger number of verses to the Sun. His commentator Utpala credits his sharp intellect to a boon by the Sun. Some later writers describe him as an incarnation of the Sun god. Utpala, for example, decares that the Sun descended on the earth in form of Varāhamihira to save the jyotisha-shastra from destruction. The Subhashita-ratna-kosha quotes stanzas that praise Varāhamihira as an incarnation of Vishnu and the Sun, presumably because of two parts of his name (varaha referring to an avatar of Vishnu, and mihira meaning sun). Sun worship seems to have been his family's religion, as his father Aditya-dasa's name literally means "slave (or servant) of the Sun". Kutuhula-manjari, a later text, suggests that Varāhamihira was born to Aditya-dasa by the blessings of the Sun. Varāhamihira's son Prthu-yashas also invokes the Sun in the opening stanza of his work Shatpanchashikha. Varāhamihira was well-versed with the Vedic tradition. He recommends the performance of several ancient Hindu rituals such as Punyaham and chanting of Vedic hymns. Varāhamihira praises Vishnu in the chapters 42 and 104 of Brhat-samhita, leading A.N.S. Aiyangar and