Political History of Ancient India, from the Accession of Parikshit to the Extinction of the Gupta Dynasty c9.s5.1

c9.s5.1

The *Purāṇas* give long lists of the successors of Sīradhvaja Janaka¹ whom Bhavabhūti seems to identify with the contemporary of Yājñavalkya.² With one or two exceptions none of the kings in these lists can be satisfactorily identified with the Videhan monarchs mentioned in the Vedic, Buddhist and Jaina literature. It is, therefore, difficult to say how far the lists are reliable. The identification of any of the kings named in the bardic chronicles with the Vedic Janaka is the most knotty of all problems. We have already noted the arguments that can be urged in support of the view of Bhavabhūti. The mere fact that Sīradhvaja is placed high in the Purāṇic lists does not necessarily prove that he actually flourished long before the extinction of the dynasty. It should be remembered in this connection that Pradyota who was in reality a contemporary of Bimbisāra, king of Magadha, is placed by the Purāṇic chroniclers or scribes some nine generations before that ruler, and Siddhārtha of the Ikshvāku list, a contemporary of Prasenajit of Kosala, is represented as the grandfather of the latter. The evidence of the *Vishṇu Purāṇa*³ suggests that there were at times several collateral lines of Janakas who ruled contemporaneously. The problem of Sīradhvaja must, therefore, be regarded as *sub judice*. In view of the uncertainty about the identification of this king and his proper place in the dynastic list, it is not easy to determine which of the Videhan kings mentioned in the Purāṇic chronicles actually came *after* the contemporary of Āruṇi and Yājñavalkya. The evidence of the *Jātakas*, however, suggests that a king named Nimi, at any rate, ruled after the great Janaka, as he is called the penultimate sovereign of the dynasty. Pargiter¹ places all the kings of the Purāṇic lists down to Bahulāśva *before* the Bhārata war, and apparently identifies his son Kṛiti with Kṛitakshana of the *Mahābhārata*,² a contemporary of Yudhishṭhira. But as there were "Janakas," even after Yudhishṭhira, and as two *Purāṇas* conclude with the remark that with Kṛiti ends the race of the Janakas,"³ the identification of Kṛiti, the *last* of the race, with Kṛitakshana does not seem to be plausible. It is more reasonable to identify Kṛiti of the *Purāṇas* with Karāla Janaka who, as we shall see below, brought the line of Vaideha kings to an end. The only objection to this view is that Karāla is represented as the son of Nimi, whereas Kṛiti was the son of Bahulāśva. But the cognomen Nimi may have been borne by several kings and Bahulāśva may have been one of them. An alternative theory would be to represent Kṛiti and Karāla as the last members of two collateral lines of Janakas.