Ancient Indian Historical Tradition c10.48

c10.48

Another instance may be cited from the Śatapatha Brāhmaṇa (xiii, 5, 4, 9 and 21). It says that Bharata seized the sacrificial horse of the Satvants, and adds that his descendants, the Bharatas, were greater than those of any other king. Here it has confused Bharata, the famous Paurava king, with apparently Bharata, the brother of Rāma of Ayodhyā. King Bharata was long prior to the Satvants or Sātvatas, as the synchronisms and the Table of royal genealogies show (chapters XII to XIV), but Rāma and Bharata of Ayodhyā were their contemporaries, and this story is no doubt connected with the conquest of the Śūrasena territory from the Sātvatas and its occupation by Rāma's brother Śatrughna, as will be noticed in chapter XIV. It would have been this Bharata who could have carried off the sacrificial horse, and it was the descendants of the Paurava Bharata, who were the famous Bharatas.