Political History of Ancient India, from the Accession of Parikshit to the Extinction of the Gupta Dynasty c9.s3.226

c9.s3.226

The *Pañchaviṁśa Brāhmaṇa*¹ affords a clue to the royal seat of the ‘Abhipratāriṇa’ branch of the Kuru family whose reign witnessed the beginning of those incidents that spelled disaster to the Kurus. We are told that Dṛiti, apparently the priest of king Abhipratārin, son of Kakshasena, completed a sacrifice in Khāṇḍava.² The same *Brāhmaṇa*³ refers to the **Abhipratāriṇas** as the “mightiest of all their relations.” The passage is significant. It suggests that the great Janamejaya was no more in the land of the living in the days of Abhipratārin and his descendants, and that the line represented by the latter far outshone the other branches of the Kuru royal family. The existence of distinct offshoots of the line is clearly implied by tradition. One of them held sway in Hāstinapura and later on moved to Kauśāmbī. This is the branch mentioned in the Purāṇas. Another line reigned in Ishukāra.⁴ The third and the ‘mightiest’ branch is, as we have seen, connected with Khāṇḍava, the far-famed region where the great epic locates the stately city of Indraprastha. The famous capital which stood close to the site of modern Delhi finds prominent mention in the *Jātakas* as the seat of a line of kings claiming to belong to the “Yudhiṭṭhila *gotra*” (Yudhishṭhira’s gotra or clan).