Ancient Indian Historical Tradition c10.128

c10.128

Notices and allusions occur in the genealogies and elsewhere, and are most trustworthy when introduced naturally, appropriately and simply, such as the mention of Gaurī and her son king Māndhātṛ in the Paurava genealogy,⁸ that of Datta Ātreya in connexion with Arjuna Kārtavīrya,⁹ and of king Kṛta as disciple of Hiraṇyanābha Kausalya.¹⁰ The Brahmāṇḍa, Vāyu, Brahma, Harivaṃśa and Matsya have the best and most valuable allusions of this kind; others have few, and some have none, such as the Garuḍa and Agni, because they are merely late and concise compilations. Where notices and allusions occur in tales or discourses, their value depends greatly on their context, and they are *per se* the less trustworthy, the more their context is brahmanical, because the brahmans lacked the historical sense: thus, for instance in the brahmanical version of the story of Śunaḥśepa the appellation Bharata-ṛṣabha given to Viśvāmitra is entirely wrong as mentioned above; and so also the introduction of Agastya into a story about king Nahuṣa,¹ for the Agastyas did not exist then.