Wednesday 15 February 2012

Genealogies

Now returning back to the genealogies.
I request the reader to keep the excel file open while reading this or else it would cause inconvenience.
In those genealogies, the placing of dushyanta, the Paurava king at No.33 and Sudas of north Panchal synasty at No. 55 is perhaps the most important thing. The reason being, both of these kings knew that a rishi vishwamitra existed. Vishwamitra's daughter shakuntala was the wife of dushyanta and vishwamitra had helped sudas in the war of 10 kings which is mentioned in Rigveda ( RV ) ( 7.18).
now the problem is that, the original ( Eponymous, abbreviated as Epon) vishwamitra rishis known as vishwamitra Gathin or son of gadhi who is king in the Kanyakubja line. But where to place the original rishi?
Another fact to note is that this (epon)vishwamitra was present during the reign of trishanku of the Ikshvaku dynasty. So surely (Epon) Vishvamitra should be at No. 32 in the Kanyakubja line along with Trishanku of the Ikshvaku line.
The main problem is that whether we should place Dushyant as a contemporary of this (Epon) vishvamitra or whether it should be Sudas who is at least 20 generations down from dushyant.
Many people consider it that Sudas should be contemporary with Vishvamitra (Epon) because the rigved and Katyayana's Sarvanukramani mention that the Vishwamitra Gathin was present during his reign. But the problem with this is that the sarvanukramani directly ascribes verses to Vishwamitra Gathin even if the verses are composed by his descendants. eg- RV ( 3.53.12) which says Vishvamitra crossed the Sindhu river for sudas.The composer here actually calls himself a Vishwamitra's descendant but this verse is ascribed to Vishwamitra gathin himself.

Another problem. Suppose I agree that Vishwamitra Gathin was present during Sudas's regime and some other Vishvamitra was the father-in-law of Dushyanta who was some 20 generations before Sudas. The question arises, how can an unknown Vishvamitra exist some 20 generations before the actual Vishvamitra gathina who stated the Vishvamitra family line???

So we have to consider that Vishvamitra Gathina was present during Dushyant's reign and his remote descendant was present during Sudas' time who got wrongly ascribed as Vishvamitra Gathin himself. 

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