Ancient Indian Historical Tradition c20.13

c20.13

Tradition speaks also of an earlier time of great destruction and misery, when the kṣatriyas were well-nigh exterminated and North India was plunged into grievous calamities,⁵ and brahmanic fable attributes that to Rāma Jāmadagnya, though kṣatriya tradition shows it really occurred in consequence of the devastating raids of the Haihayas, from whom Sagara delivered the land and restored peace (chapter XXIV). That time may naturally have marked the transition from one age to another. There is no later similar period of calamity that suggests itself as a change of age, but tradition treats Rāma's destruction of Rāvaṇa and the Rākṣasas of the Dekhan and Ceylon as an epoch of signal vengeance upon evil foes.⁶ The table of genealogies in chapter XII comprises all the kings from the beginning of the Kṛta to the end of the Dvāpara age, and shows that Sagara's destruction of the Haihayas and Rāma's reign divide the whole period into three parts of not very unequal length, which might well constitute three ages. This arrangement produces a scheme of four ages which is sensible, though exactitude cannot of course be expected.