Political History of Ancient India, from the Accession of Parikshit to the Extinction of the Gupta Dynasty c9.s4.52

c9.s4.52

The Vedic texts know a king of Videha named Namī Sāpya.⁶ But he is nowhere represented as the founder of the dynasty of Mithilā. On the contrary, a story of the *Śatapatha Brāhmaṇa* seems to indicate that the Videhan kingdom owes its origin to Videgha Māthava who came from banks of the Sarasvatī.⁷ We are told that the fire-god went burning along this earth from the Sarasvatī towards the east, followed by Māthava and his priest, Gotama Rāhūgaṇa till he came to the river Sadānīrā which flows from the northern (Himālaya) mountain, and which he did not burn over. No Brāhmaṇas went across the stream in former times, thinking "it has not been burnt over by Agni Vaiśvānara (the fire that burns for all men)." At that time the land to the eastward was very uncultivated, and marshy,¹ but after Māthava's arrival many Brāhmaṇas went there, and it was cultivated, for the Brāhmaṇas had caused Agni, the Fire-god, to taste it through sacrifices. Māthava the Videgha then said to Agni, "where am I to abide?" "To the east of this river be thy abode," he replied. Even now, the writer of the *Śatapatha Brāhmaṇa* adds, this stream forms the boundary between the Kosalas and the Videhas. The name of Mithi Vaideha, the second king in the Epic and the Purāṇic lists, is reminiscent of Māthava Videgha.