Political History of Ancient India, from the Accession of Parikshit to the Extinction of the Gupta Dynasty c9.s3.53

c9.s3.53

Parikshit II has thus a better claim than Parikshit I to be regarded as identical with the Vedic Parikshit. It is, however, possible that Parikshit I and Parikshit II represent a bardic duplication of the same original individual regarding whose exact place in the Kuru genealogy no unanimous tradition had survived. The fact that not only the name Parikshit, but names of most of the sons (in the *Vishṇu* and *Brahma Purāṇas*⁵ the names of all the sons) are common to both, points to the same conclusion. In the case of the son and successor of each of the two Parikshits we have a strikingly similar story of quarrel with the Brāhmaṇas.⁶ It will further be remembered that while Tura Kāvasheya is mentioned in the Purāṇic literature as a *Purohita* of the son of Parikshit II, Indrota Daivāpa Saunaka is represented as the priest of the son of Parikshit I. But it is clear from the Vedic texts that both the royal chaplains served the same king *who was separated by five or six generations* from Janaka, the contemporary of Uddālaka Āruṇi, Yājñavalkya and Somaśushma. Doubts may thus be legitimately entertained about the existence of two Parikshits each of whom had sons and successors with identical names, the heroes of tales of a similar character. The probability is that there was really only one Parikshit in the Kuru royal family, father of the patron of both Tura and Indrota.