Ancient Indian Historical Tradition c19.59

c19.59

King Kṛta or Kṛti of the Dvimīḍha line was, as all the passages which mention him say,² the disciple of Hiraṇyanābha or Hiraṇyanābhi Kausalya, and made twenty-four saṃhitās of sāmans; they were the ‘eastern sāmans’, and the chanters of them were called Kārtas or Kārtis after him. Hiraṇyanābha was a king of Kosala,³ but his position is confused in three passages, which place him five generations after Vyāsa⁴; and that is wrong, because it would make him one of the ‘future’ kings after the Bhārata battle (chapter III), but he was not one of them⁵ and the genealogies fix his position clearly as No. 83 in the Ayodhyā dynasty;⁶ and because it is incredible that, after the brahmans had established the Vedic schools, two kings could have been such authorities on the sāmans. Kṛta was one step below Hiraṇyanābha.