Ancient Indian Historical Tradition c24.22

c24.22

Bharadvāja Bārhaspatya Vidathin, who was adopted by Bharata (p. 163), is said to have had five sons, Suhotra, Śunahotra, Nara, Garga and Ṛjiśvan, who were Bhāradvājas and could claim optionally to be grandsons of Bṛhaspati or of Bharata.² The option involved that they could be either brahmans or kṣatriyas, and the mention of it implies that they exercised it, as will appear in chapter XXIII. The Vedārthadīpikā also says they belonged to the Bārhaspatya gotra of Śamyu (who is elsewhere declared to have been son of a Bṛhaspati,³ and was therefore prior to these five persons), and they expanded ⁴ the family of the Bhāradvājas; but its genealogy is contracted and incorrect, for they were not brothers, and they were not sons but descendants of Vidathin Bharadvāja.⁵ Ṛjiśvan was a son or descendant of Vidathin, for he is called *Vaidathina*;⁶ and he is also called son of ‘Bharadvāja’ and son’s son of ‘Bṛhaspati’ or of Bharata,⁷ where the word ‘son’ obviously does not mean immediate sonship. Accordingly, since he and the other four mentioned were born in the Paurava line and yet he was of Śamyu’s gotra, Śamyu son of ‘Bṛhaspati’⁸ must be placed before Vidathin and after the Bṛhaspati mentioned above; and Ṛjiśvan with or soon after Garga and Nara’s son Saṅkṛti (pp. 112, 191).