The Cambridge History of India, Vol. I: Ancient India v1.c24.40

v1.c24.40

It seems impossible to bring the Purāṇic genealogies into any satisfactory relation with the Vedic literature or with one another until we approach the period at which they profess to have been recited, that is to say, the reign of Parīkshit in the case of the Vishṇu Pur. and the reign of Adhisīmakṛishṇa in the case of most of the others. Then certain synchronisms seem to afford a more secure chronological standpoint. Parīkshit is celebrated as a king of the Kurus in the last and latest book of the Atharvaveda: according to the epic, as usually interpreted, he was appointed king of Hastināpura more than thirty-six years after the great war between the Kurus and Pāṇḍus. Adhisīmakṛishṇa, the great great grandson of Parīkshit is represented by the Purāṇas as contemporary with Divākara of Kosala and Senājit of Magadha. Between the last mentioned and his predecessor Sahadeva, who was killed in the great war, six reigns intervene. The length of each reign and the total duration of the different dynasties of Magadha are given in some versions. Unfortunately the state of the text is so corrupt and the numbers are so discrepant that this evidence is generally of no value. Leaving out of account an impossible reading which attributes a reign of one hundred years to Nirāmitra, the MSS. as they stand give a maximum of 289 and a minimum of 259 years to the six reigns which separate the great war from Senājit of Magadha; and even the lesser of these estimates would seem to be excessive. We must be content with the general conclusion that the tradition of the Purāṇas, according to the dynastic lists of Hastināpura and Magadha, places the great war early in what we know as the Brāhmaṇa period, say about 1000 B.C.