Ancient Indian Historical Tradition c15.2

c15.2

The question naturally arises whether credence can be attached to the foregoing royal genealogies. Kingdoms and dynasties existed, as we know even from the Vedic literature, and their genealogies must have existed and would have been preserved as long as the dynasties endured. It is incredible that the students of ancient traditional lore, who existed continuously as pointed out in chapter II, discarded or lost those famous genealogies and preserved spurious substitutes. This does not mean that spurious genealogies were never fabricated, for some were devised as will be noticed; but fictitious pedigrees presuppose genuine pedigrees, and it is absurd to suppose that fiction completely ousted truth : so that, if any one maintains that these genealogies are worthless, the burden rests on him to produce, not mere doubts and suppositions, but substantial grounds and reasons for his assertion. Common sense thus shows that these genealogies cannot be fictitious, and the foregoing question is narrowed down to this, whether they can be accepted as substantially trustworthy. Their credibility can be tested in various ways.