Ancient Indian Historical Tradition c14.s7.10

c14.s7.10

The eldest son Bṛhadratha took Magadha and founded the famous Bārhadratha dynasty there.⁶ Kuśa or Kuśāmba obviously had Kauśāmbī, Pratyagraha may have taken Cedi, and Yadu Karūṣa. It seems probable the fifth kingdom⁷ was Matsya. The Matsyas existed before (probably as a Yādava tribe), because they were opponents of Sudās;⁸ and Vasu may have conquered this country also, which adjoined Cedi on the north-west. There is no account given anywhere about the Matsya dynasty, except that fable⁹ made Vasu the parent, through a fish, of two children, the fisher-maiden Kālī (p. 69) and a son named Matsya, who became a king. The genealogies in the Viṣṇu and Bhāgavata insert Matsya among Vasu’s sons, and those in the other Purāṇas add Kālī and Matsya to the above five. Thus tradition suggests that one of Vasu’s sons was king of Matsya, and except to account for this there was no reason for introducing him into that fable: possibly then the fifth son should be Matsya, and his kingdom Matsya.