Ancient Indian Historical Tradition c7.128

c7.128

In this connexion two expressions may be noticed, which occur rarely, yet seem to indicate that genealogies were not accepted blindly but were scrutinized in order to ascertain the true or most trustworthy version. One is icchanti, which appears to mean ‘men prefer’, ‘men approve’, as if the statement to which it is applied was approved after inquiry;⁵ and it is used somewhat similarly elsewhere.⁶ The other is śamsanti, which does not mean ‘extol’ in the passages where it occurs, because Antara (Uttara, Uttama) is unknown otherwise, but it appears to mean ‘men announce’, in an emphatic way as if settling some difference of opinion.⁷