Ancient Indian Historical Tradition c29.218

c29.218

The main line at Hastināpura was undistinguished and played no noteworthy part at first, for the names of all its kings except Ṛkṣa have been forgotten till Saṃvaraṇa’s time (pp. 146, 148). The northern of the two other kingdoms first rose to eminence. One of its early kings, Bhṛmyaśva,¹ had five sons, to whom was given the nickname Pañcāla (p. 75),² and it seems they all received principalities because of that explanation and because one of the younger sons is called a king (p. 116). His territory then, which was not large, would have been divided into five small districts, and Mudgala and the other sons would have been quite petty rājās.³ Mudgala’s son and descendants became brahmans, the Maudgalyas (p. 251), but his grandson Vadhryaśva raised the kingdom, and Vadhryaśva’s son Divodāsa augmented it (p. 120). They and their successors are the kings who play a prominent part in the Rigveda, and the other kings, who are named with them there, were probably the petty rājās in the lineage of Mudgala’s brothers. All these kings of N. Pañcāla were kṣatriyan brahmans (chapter XXIII).