Ancient Indian Historical Tradition c29.187

c29.187

All these events were turned by the brahmans into the fable that Rāma destroyed all kṣatriyas off the earth twenty-one times, slaughtering each generation as it grew up.³ It seems to have arisen thus. The slaughter began with Rāma's killing the Haihayas, and their career was checked a while. The brahmans knew that the carnage began again and continued long, though through their lack of the historical sense they did not understand that it occurred after Rāma's time, first, through the Haihayas, and lastly through Sagara: but it was easy, since the Bhārgavas were no longer at enmity with the Haihayas, to imagine that Rāma was still at work and to attribute the Haihaya devastations to him; and finally it was quite simple to credit Sagara's final destruction of all the enemies to Rāma, who was an Aurva (pp. 198-9), because it was alleged that Sagara destroyed them with Rāma's magical fire-weapon, which Bhārgava Aurva who educated him gave him,⁴ and that the great Tālajaṅgha kṣatriya host was destroyed by Aurva single-handed.⁵