Ancient Indian Historical Tradition c19.11

c19.11

The story about Lopāmudrā and Agastya goes on to make three kings, Śrutarvan, Bradhnaśva and Trasadasyu Paurukutsa their contemporaries,⁶ but it gives no particulars about the first two and wrongly says Trasadasyu was of the Ikṣvāku race, for Trasadasyu the Aikṣvāku was far earlier than Sagara, who was a younger contemporary of Vidarbha as shown above. The synchronisms (infra) show that the later Trasadasyu Paurukutsa (p. 133), who was a Bhārata, was a contemporary of Ṛkṣa and a younger contemporary of Divodāsa’s father Vadhryaśva. A king Śrutarvan Ārkṣa, ‘son of Ṛkṣa,’ is mentioned,⁷ and the two Ṛkṣas are probably the same.⁸ Hence the Bhārata Trasadasyu, Vadhryaśva and Śrutarvan were practically contemporaries, and Böhtlingk and Roth’s conjecture that Bradhnaśva is an error for Vadhryaśva seems right. A synchronism then inferred from the Rigveda has been wrongly attached to Agastya and Lopāmudrā,¹ who were considerably earlier as shown, and the two Trasadasyus have been confused. This is a spurious synchronism, a brahmanical addition to glorify Agastya, and reveals the lack of the historical sense.