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Ancient Indian Historical Tradition c26: Chapter XXI. The Viśvāmitras

Ancient Indian Historical Tradition c26

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Chapter XXI. The Viśvāmitras

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The family of the Viśvāmitras was founded by the great Viśvāmitra, and the story about him has been narrated above (p. 205). His brahmanhood was disputed by the great Devarāj Vasiṣṭha, and he succeeded in establishing it, with the result that he held a position independent of all other brahmans, and so founded an independent brahman family, the only separate brahman family founded by a kṣatriya.⁵ His position has been fixed above (p. 152). The various Viśvāmitras who will be noticed are however often confused, and sometimes regarded as one and the same person,⁶ with the result that no allusions occur which can well suggest names to distinguish them. An account of Viśvāmitra and his sons is given by four Puranas⁷ and the texts should be collated. Lists of the gotras are also given by various authorities and will be noticed.

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⁵ MBh xiii, 3, 185; 4, 247-8.

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⁶ e. g. MBh i, 71, 2921-8.

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⁷ Hv 27, 1460-3; 32, 1767-9. Br 10, 57-60; 13, note to verse 91. These are closely alike. Vā 91, 96-7 and Bd iii, 66, 68-9 are alike but give only two lines. But all these sons may not have been sons of the first Viśvāmitra.

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Viśvāmitra had many sons, chief among them being Madhucchandas, Kati (or Kata?) Ṛṣabha, Reṇu, Aṣṭaka¹ and Gālava.² He also adopted the Bhārgava Śunaḥśepa with the name Devarāta and made him the chief of all his sons.³ Aṣṭaka appears to have succeeded Viśvāmitra in the kingdom of Kānyakubja (p. 146), but all the rest were entirely brahmans. Accounts concur (though differing in details) that Viśvāmitra's sons did not all accept Devarāta's headship; and it is said that Viśvāmitra cursed those who repudiated it to become dog-eaters or mlecchas,⁴ such as Andhras, Puṇḍras and Śabaras.⁵ The Rāmāyaṇa says absurdly that he cursed all his sons, because they refused to offer themselves as victims in Śunaḥśepa's stead, to be dog-eaters dwelling like the Vasiṣṭhas among the lowest castes.⁶ This is certainly wrong, for Madhucchandas and others were not degraded. There are allusions at times to degraded Viśvāmitras,⁷ but it is difficult to say what that means,⁸ and it is distinctly stated that all his sons were munis who declared sacred lore.⁹

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¹ Vedārth on Rigv ix, 70 and x, 104. But possibly sons of different Viśvāmitras have been mixed up. The 13 chief Kuśikas are named, Bd ii, 32, 117–19; Mat 145, 111–14. ² In story of Satyavrata Triśaṅku, p.

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The Bhāgavata says¹⁰—Madhucchandas was the middle son. The elder sons resented Devarāta's position, but Madhucchandas and the younger sons accepted it; so Viśvāmitra blessed them and Devarāta as ‘Kuśikas’, and they constituted the Kauśika gotra, while the elder sons were separate and known as ‘Viśvāmitras’.

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³⁸ MBh xiii, 4, 251. In various stories, Mārk 20, 42 to 21, 4; VN 21, 33. Cf. p. 142, and second note above. ³ P.

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²⁰⁶ Rām i, 57, 3–4 gives him four sons with names all wrong. Bṛhadd iv, 95 and Bhāg ix, 16, 29 say 101. ⁴ MBh xiii, 3, 188. ⁵ Aitareya Brāhm vii, 18. Śaṅkhāyana Śr Sūtra xv, 26. ⁶ Rām i, 62, 9–17. ⁷ As Rākṣasas, Vā 69, 195; 70, 53, 56 : Bd iii, 8, 59, 62. ⁸ It may have been developed out of the story that a Viśvāmitra, compelled by hunger, once ate dog's flesh from a caṇḍāla's hand; Bṛ 93, 5–24; Manu x, 108; MBh xii, 141, 5344–5417. But more probably it means that some of Viśvāmitra's descendants became priests to non-Aryan tribes and so degenerated to the level of their clients. It is said he created yātudhānas, MBh xiii, 3, 4. See Paulastyas, note, next chapter. ⁹ MBh xiii, 4, 248, 259. ¹⁰ Bhāg ix, 16, 29, 33–7.

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But tradition hardly seems to acknowledge this distinction, for the Viśvāmitras generally seem to have been known as Kuśikas and Kauśikas, after Viśvāmitra's grandfather king Kuśika (p. 144).

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The next Viśvāmitra was the father of Śakuntalā, Duṣyanta's queen and Bharata's mother (ante). Nothing particular is said about him and he is generally confused with the first Viśvāmitra,¹ though there was a considerable interval between them (pp. 144, 146). His position is therefore fixed. A Viśvāmitra is next mentioned in the story of Kalmāṣapāda Saudāsa, king of Ayodhyā, but he appears to have been mistakenly introduced into it through confusing this Saudāsa with Sudāsa (p. 208). A later Viśvāmitra is introduced in the Rāmāyaṇa, as obtaining Rāma's help to destroy the demon Tārakā, and as narrating various wonderful legends to Rāma.² There were of course Viśvāmitras at that time, but his appearance there is doubtful and seems intended to glorify Rāma.³ Moreover, he is there wrongly identified with the first Viśvāmitra,⁴ and the brahmanic fable of the contest between that Viśvāmitra and Vasiṣṭha is narrated as concerning him.⁵

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¹ As in MBh i, 71, 2923-8, where he and other Viśvāmitras are confused.

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² Rām i, 18, 39 f. Viṣ iv, 4, 41-2 copies.

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³ The Rāmopākhyāna (MBh iii, 276) says nothing about it.

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⁴ Rām i, 18, 39-40.

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⁵ Id. i, 51, 19 f.

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An important Viśvāmitra was the rishi who was connected with Sudās (Sudāsa) king of N. Pañcāla (p. 148), and was a rival of the seventh Vasiṣṭha noticed in chapter XVIII. Both these rishis were priests to Sudās, as the Rigveda shows,⁶ and one appears to have ousted the other; and the point for consideration here is which was first Sudās's priest, and which afterwards. It is said that Vasiṣṭha consecrated Sudās as king,⁷ and this if accepted would settle the question. Tradition says that this Vasiṣṭha's son Śakti was killed by Sudās's servants through Viśvāmitra's instigation (p. 208); and there are two facts, first, that there is no hymn by any Vasiṣṭha in praise of Sudās's son Sahadeva or grandson Somaka; and secondly, hymn iii, 33, attributed to Viśvāmitra, describes the Bharatas as crossing the rivers Śutudrī (Sutlej) and Vipāś (Beas), and appears to refer to Sudās and his Bharatas, because no Viśvāmitra is said to have been priest to the other Bhārata line, the Pauravas of Hastinā- pura; that is, it appears to refer to Sudās’s campaign against Saṃvaraṇa westwards into the Panjab. These considerations corroborate the point that Sudās’s first priest was Vasiṣṭha, that Vasiṣṭha’s son Śakti was killed through Viśvāmitra’s instigation, and that ultimately Vasiṣṭha departed to Saṃvaraṇa and Viśvāmitra became Sudās’s priest.¹ Manu’s story (p. 209) may help to explain how Viśvāmitra ousted Vasiṣṭha.

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⁶ Viśvāmitra; iii, 53, 9, 11, 12. Vasiṣṭha; vii, 18, 4, 22, 23.

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⁷ Aitareya Brāhm viii, 4, 21.

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¹ See p. 172, and JRAS, 1918, pp. 233-8, 246-8. Vedic Index ii, 89 inverts this.

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‘Viśvāmitra’ is said to have had a son Raibhya,² who had two sons Arvāvasu and Parāvasu.³ They are connected in stories with ‘Bharadvāja’ and his son Yavakrī, and a king Bṛhaddyumna,⁴ and with Vasu king of Cedi and a Raibhya Dhanus;⁵ and Parāvasu with Rāma Jāmadagnya;⁶ but these allegations are inconsistent brahmanical fables.⁷ The river Kauśikī (Kosi in N. Behar) was said to have been specially connected with ‘Viśvāmitra’, and named after his patronymic Kauśika.⁸ Other references to ‘Viśvāmitra’ occur,⁹ but are uncertain, especially as the different Viśvāmitras and Kauśikas were confused.

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² MBh xii, 49, 1771. A Raibhya also among the Kāśyapas (ante).

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³ MBh iii, 135, 10704; 138, 10792: xii, 49, 1771-2.

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⁴ MBh iii, 135 to 138.

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⁵ MBh xii, 338, 12754-8.

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⁶ MBh xii, 49, 1772-5.

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⁷ See tables, pp. 144 f., 191 f.

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⁸ MBh i, 71, 2924: iii, 84, 8109-10; 110, 9987-90.

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⁹ e. g. Kauśika, MBh ii, 20, 807; v, 116, 3972. Gālava’s son Śṛṅgavant, ix, 53, 2992-5.

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Viśvāmitra’s descendants formed many gotras, and more lists are given of them than in any other brahman family. Four Puranas contain lists, which are all different versions of one and the same original list.¹⁰ The Matsya (198) gives a longer list, which agrees with those lists in ten names only. The epic also gives a long list of rishis in this family, and only some fifteen names practically agree with those in the former lists.¹¹ The gotra names generally found in these lists are—Babhru, Devarāta, Gālava, Hiraṇyākṣa, Jābāla, Karīśi, Kuśika or Kauśika, Lohita, Madhucchandas, Pāṇini, Saindhavāyana, Śālaṅkāyana, Suśruta, Tārakāyaṇa, Yājñavalkya.¹²

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¹⁰ Vā 91, 97-102. Bḍ iii, 66, 69-74. Hv 27, 1463-9; 32, 1770-3. Br 10, 61-3; 13, note to verse 91. See p. 101.

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¹¹ MBh xiii, 4, 248-59.

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¹² There was a Yājñavalkya gotra among the Vasiṣṭhas also, Mat 200, 6.

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