Ancient Indian Historical Tradition c15.18

c15.18

Sixthly, the genealogies declare that from time to time members of royal families became brahmans as the Kāṇvas (chapter XIX), or became kṣatriyan brahmans, many of whom developed into true brahman gotras, as will be explained in chapter XXIII. Such statements cannot have originated with the brahmans, because it was not to the interest of any brahman gotra to allege such a beginning, and it is incredible that they, deeply interested as they were in exalting their own status, would have asserted that any brahman gotra sprang from kṣatriyas, except the Viśvāmitras, whose kṣatriya ancestry was notorious; and in fact their Vedic literature says nothing about such matters. These statements were too damaging to exclusive brahmanic pretensions. The brahmans then did not put them into the genealogies. The statements came from kṣatriya sources, and were notices which occurred naturally in the course of the royal genealogies. The Puranic brahmans found these notices therein and preserved them, although Vedic brahmans ignored such facts. The statements therefore were genuine ancient tradition and were known to be true beyond gainsaying; so the Viṣṇu, a late brahmanic Purana, acknowledges them freely, and even the Bhāgavata, later still and more avowedly brahmanic, though it ignores some of them, yet admits the most important cases. The statements must have originated with the incidents they describe, and therefore the genealogies which contain them were equally ancient and contemporaneous, and these considerations show that all was preserved with care.