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Annals and Antiquities of Rajasthan, or the Central and Western Rajput States of India v1.c17.s2: Chapter 2

Annals and Antiquities of Rajasthan, or the Central and Western Rajput States of India v1.c17.s2

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English

Contents

Chapter 2

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Puranic Genealogies.—The chronicles of the Bhagavat and Agni, containing the genealogies of the Surya (sun) and Indu (moon) races, shall now be examined. The first of these, by calculation, brings down the chain to a period six centuries subsequent to Vikramaditya (A.D. 650), so that these books may have been remodelled or commented on about this period : their fabrication cannot be supposed.

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Although portions of these genealogies by Sir William Jones, Mr. Bentley, and Colonel Wilford, have appeared in the volumes of the Asiatic Researches, yet no one should rest satisfied with the inquiries of others, if by any process he can reach the fountain-head himself.

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If, after all, these are fabricated genealogies of the ancient families of India, the fabrication is of ancient date, and they are all they know themselves upon the subject. The step next in importance to obtaining a perfect acquaintance with the genuine early history of nations, is to learn what those nations repute to be such.

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Doubtless the original Puranas contained much valuable historical matter; but, at present, it is difficult to separate a little pure metal from the base alloy of ignorant expounders and interpolators. I have but skimmed the surface: research, to the capable, may yet be rewarded by many isolated facts and important transactions, now hid under the veil of ignorance and allegory.

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Neglect of History by the Hindus.—The Hindus, with the decrease of intellectual power, their possession of which is evinced by their architectural remains, where just proportion and elegant mythological device are still visible, lost the relish for the beauty of truth, and adopted the monstrous in their writings as well as their edifices. But for detection and shame, matters of history would be hideously distorted even in civilized Europe; but in the East, in the moral decrepitude of ancient Asia, with no judge to condemn, no public to praise, each priestly expounder may revel in an unfettered imagination, and reckon his admirers in proportion to the mixture of the marvellous¹ [26]. Plain historical truths have long ceased to interest this artificially fed people.

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¹ The celebrated Goguet remarks on the madness of most nations pretending to trace their origin to infinity. The Babylonians, the Egyptians, and the Scythians, particularly, piqued themselves on their high antiquity, and the first assimilate with the Hindus in boasting they had observed the course of the stars 473,000 years. Each heaped ages on ages; but the foundations of this pretended antiquity are not supported by probability, and are even of modern invention (Origin of Laws).

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If at such a comparatively modern period as the third century before Christ, the Babylonian historian Berosus composed his fictions, which assigned to that monarchy such incredible antiquity, it became capable of refutation from the many historians of repute who preceded him. But on the fabulist of India we have no such check. If Vyasa himself penned these legends as now existing, then is the stream of knowledge corrupt from the fountain-head. If such the source, the stream, filtering through ages of ignorance, has only been increased by fresh impurities. It is difficult to conceive how the arts and sciences could advance, when it is held impious to doubt the truth of whatever has been handed down, and still more to suppose that the degenerate could improve thereon. The highest ambition of the present learned priesthood, generation after generation, is to be able to comprehend what has thus reached them, and to form commentaries upon past wisdom; which commentaries are commented on ad infinitum. Whoever dare now aspire to improve thereon must keep the secret in his own breast. They are but the expounders of the olden oracles; were they more they would be infidels. But this could not always have been the case.

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With the Hindus, as with other nations, the progress to the heights of science they attained must have been gradual; unless we take from them the merit of original invention, and set them down as borrowers of a system. These slavish fetters of the mind must have been forged at a later period, and it is fair to infer that the monopoly of science and religion was simultaneous. What must be the effect of such monopoly on the impulses and operations of the understanding? Where such exists, knowledge could not long remain stationary; it must perforce retrograde. Could we but discover the period when religion¹ ceased to be a profession [27] and became hereditary (and that such there was these very genealogies bear evidence), we might approximate the era when science attained its height.

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¹ It has been said that the Brahmanical religion was foreign to India; but as to the period of importation we have but loose assertion. We can easily give credit to various creeds and tenets of faith being from time to time incorporated, ere the present books were composed, and that previously the sons of royalty alone possessed the office. Authorities of weight inform us of these grafts; for instance, Mr. Colebrooke gives a passage in his Indian Classes: "A chief of the twice-born tribe was brought by Vishnu's eagle from Saca Dwipa; hence Saca Dwipa Brahmins were known in Jambu Dwipa." By Saka Dwipa, Scythia is understood, of which more will be said hereafter. Ferishta also, translating from ancient authorities, says, to the same effect, that "in the reign of Mahraje, King of Canouj, a Brahmin came from Persia, who introduced magic, idolatry, and the worship of the stars"; so that there is no want of authority for the introduction of new tenets of faith. [The passage, inaccurately quoted, is taken from Dow i. 16. See Briggs's translation, i. Introd. lxviii.]

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The Priestly Office.—In the early ages of these Solar and Lunar dynasties, the priestly office was not hereditary in families; it was a profession; and the genealogies exhibit frequent instances of branches of these races terminating their martial career in the commencement of a religious sect, or gotra, and of their descendants reassuming their warlike occupations. Thus, of the ten sons of Ikshwaku,¹ three are represented as abandoning worldly affairs and taking to religion; and one of these, Kanina, is said to be the first who made an agnihotra, or pyreum, and worshipped fire, while another son embraced commerce. Of the Lunar line and the six sons of Pururavas, the name of the fourth was Raya; “from him the fifteenth generation was Harita, who with his eight brothers took to the office of religion, and established the Kausika Gotra, or tribe of Brahmans.”

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¹ See Table I. [now obsolete, not reprinted].

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From the twenty-fourth prince in lineal descent from Yayati, by name Bharadwaja, originated a celebrated sect, who still bear his name, and are the spiritual teachers of several Rajput tribes.

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Of the twenty-sixth prince, Manava, two sons devoted themselves to religion, and established celebrated sects, viz. Mahavira, whose descendants were the Pushkar Brahmans; and Sankriti, whose issue were learned in the Vedas From the line of Ajamidha these ministers of religion were continually branching off.

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In the very early periods, the princes of the Solar line, like the Egyptians and Romans, combined the offices of the priesthood with kingly power, and this whether Brahmanical or Buddhist.² Many of the royal line, before and subsequent to Rama, passed great part of their lives as ascetics; and in ancient sculpture and drawings the head is as often adorned with the braided lock of the ascetic as with the diadem of royalty.³

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² Some of the earlier of the twenty-four Tirthakaras, or Jain hierarchs, trace their origin from the solar race of princes. [As usual, Buddhism confused with Jainism.]

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³ Even now the Rana of Mewar mingles spiritual duties with those of royalty, and when he attends the temple of the tutelary deity of his race, he performs himself all the offices of the high priest for the day. In this point a strong resemblance exists to many of the races of antiquity.

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The greatest monarchs bestowed their daughters on these royal hermits and sages [28]. Ahalya, the daughter of the powerful Panchala,⁴ became the wife of the ascetic Gautama. The sage Jamadagni espoused the daughter of Sahasra⁵ Arjuna, of Mahishmat,¹ king of the Haihaya tribe, a great branch of the Yadu race.

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⁴ Prince of the country of Panjab, or five streams east of the Indus. [Panchāla was in the Ganges-Jumna Duāb and its neighbourhood.]

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⁵ The legend of this monarch stealing his son-in-law's, the hermit's, cow (of which the Ramayana gives another version), the incarnation of Para-

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¹ Maheswar, on the Nerbudda River.

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Among the Egyptians, according to Herodotus [ii. 37, 141], the priests succeeded to sovereignty, as they and the military class alone could hold lands; and Sethos, the priest of Vulcan, caused a revolution, by depriving the military of their estates.

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We have various instances in India of the Brahmans from Jamadagni to the Mahratta Peshwa, contesting for sovereignty; power ² and homage being still their great aim, as in the days of Vishvamitra ³ and Vasishtha, the royal sages [29] whom “Janaka

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² Hindustan abounds with Brahmans, who make excellent soldiers, as far as bravery is a virtue; but our officers are cautious, from experience, of admitting too many into a troop or company, for they still retain their intriguing habits. I have seen nearly as many of the Brahmans as of military in some companies; a dangerous error [realized in the Great Mutiny].

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³ The Brahman Vasishtha possessed a cow named Savala, so fruitful that with her assistance he could accomplish whatever he desired. By her aid he entertained King Vishvamitra and his army. It is evident that this cow denotes some tract of country which the priest held (bearing in mind that gao, prithivi, signify ‘the earth,’ as well as ‘cow’): a grant, beyond doubt, by some of Vishvamitra’s unwise ancestors, and which he wished to resume. From her were supplied “the oblations to the gods and the pitrideva (father-gods, or ancestors), the perpetual sacrificial fire, the burnt-offerings and sacrifices.” This was “the fountain of devotional acts”; this was the Savala for which the king offered “a hundred thousand cows”; this was “the jewel of which a king only should be proprietor.”—The subjects of the Brahman appeared not to relish such transfer, and by “the lowing of the cow Savala” obtained numerous foreign auxiliaries, which enabled the Brahman to set his sovereign at defiance. Of these “the Pahlavi (Persian) kings, the dreadful Sakas (Sakai), and Yavanas (Greeks), with scymitars and gold armour, the Kambojas,” etc., were each in turn created by the all-producing cow. The armies of the Pahlavi kings were cut to pieces by Vishvamitra; who at last, by continual reinforcements, was overpowered

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suram, son of Jamadagni, and his exploits, appear purely allegorical, signifying the violence and oppression of royalty over the earth (prithivi), personified by the sacred gao, or cow; and that the Brahmans were enabled to wrest royalty from the martial tribe, shows how they had multiplied.

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On the derivatives from the word gao, I venture an etymology for others to pursue :

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ΓΑῖΑ, γέα, γῆ (Dor. γᾶ), that which produces all things (from γάω, genero); the earth.—Jones’s Dictionary.

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ΓΆΛΑ, Milk. Gaola, Herdsman, in Sanskrit. Γαλατικοῖ, Κέλτοι, Galatians, or Gauls, and Celts (allowed to be the same) would be the shepherd races, the pastoral invaders of Europe [?].

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sovereign of Mithila, addressed with folded hands in token of superiority."

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Relations of Rajputs with Brahmans.—But this deference for the Brahmans is certainly, with many Rajput classes, very weak. In obedience to prejudice, they show them outward civility; but, unless when their fears or wishes interfere, they are less esteemed than the bards.

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The story of the King Vishvamitra of Gadhipura¹ and the Brahman Vasishtha, which fills so many sections of the first book of the Ramayana,² exemplifies, under the veil of allegory, the by the Brahman’s levies. These reinforcements would appear to have been the ancient Persians, the Sacae, the Greeks, the inhabitants of Assam and Southern India, and various races out of the pale of the Hindu religion; all classed under the term Mlechchha, equivalent to the ‘barbarian’ of the Greeks and Romans.

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¹ Kanauj, the ancient capital of the present race of Marwar. [This is a myth.]

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² See translation of this epic, by Messrs. Carey and Marshman [in verse, by R. T. H. Griffith].

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The King Vishvamitra, defeated and disgraced by this powerful priest, "like a serpent with his teeth broken, like the sun robbed by the eclipse of its splendour, was filled with perturbation. Deprived of his sons and array, stripped of his pride and confidence, he was left without resource as a bird bereft of his wings." He abandoned his kingdom to his son, and like all Hindu princes in distress, determined, by penitential rites and austerities, "to obtain Brahmanhood." He took up his abode at the sacred Pushkar, living on fruits and roots, and fixing his mind, said, "I will become a Brahman." By these penances he attained such spiritual power that he was enabled to usurp the Brahman’s office. The theocrats caution Vishvamitra, thus determined to become a Brahman by austerity, that "the divine books are to be observed with care only by those acquainted with their evidence; nor does it become thee (Vishvamitra) to subvert the order of things established by the ancients." The history of his wanderings, austerities, and the temptations thrown in his way is related. The celestial fair were commissioned to break in upon his meditations. The mother of love herself descended; while Indra, joining the cause of the Brahmans, took the shape of the kokila, and added the melody of his notes to the allurements of Rambha, and the perfumed zephyrs which assailed the royal saint in the wilderness. He was proof against all temptation, and condemned the fair to become a pillar of stone. He persevered "till every passion was subdued," till "not a tincture of sin appeared in him," and gave such alarm to the whole priesthood, that they dreaded lest his excessive sanctity should be fatal to them: they feared "mankind would become atheists." "The gods and Brahma at their head were obliged to grant his desire of Brahmanhood; and Vashishtha, conciliated by the gods, acquiesced in their wish, and formed a friendship with Vishvamitra" [Muir, Original Sanskrit Texts, Part i. (1858), 75 ff.].

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contests for power between the Brahmanical and military classes, and will serve to indicate the probable period when the castes became immutable. Stripped of its allegory, the legend appears to point to a time when the division of the classes was yet imperfect; though we may infer, from the violence of the struggle, that it was the last in which Brahmanhood could be obtained by the military.

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Vishvamitra was the son of Gadhi (of the race of Kausika), King of Gadhipura, and contemporary of Ambarisha, King of Ayodhya or Oudh, the fortieth prince from Ikshwaku; consequently about two hundred years anterior to Rama. This event therefore, whence we infer that the system of castes was approaching perfection, was probably about one thousand four hundred years before Christ.

Dates of the Genealogies

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If proof can be given that these genealogies existed in the days of Alexander, the fact would be interesting. The legend in the Puranas, of the origin of the Lunar race, appears to afford this testimony.

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Vyasa, the author of the grand epic the Mahabharata, was son of Santanu (of the race of Hari),¹ sovereign of Delhi, by Yojana-gandha, a fisherman’s daughter,² [30] consequently illegitimate. He became the spiritual father, or preceptor, of his nieces, the daughters of Vichitravirya, the son and successor of Santanu.

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¹ Hari-Kula.

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² It is a very curious circumstance that Hindu legend gives to two of their most celebrated authors, whom they have invested with a sacred character, a descent from the aboriginal and impure tribes of India: Vyasa from a fisherman, and Valmiki, the author of the other grand epic the Ramayana, from a Baddhik or robber, an associate of the Bhil tribe at Abu. The conversion of Valmiki (said to have been miraculous, when in the act of robbing the shrine of the deity) is worked into a story of considerable effect, in the works of Chand, from olden authority.

The Herakles Legend

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Vichitravirya had no male offspring. Of his three daughters, one was named Pandaia ³; and Vyasa, being the sole remaining male branch of the house of Santanu, took his niece, and spiritual daughter, Pandaia, to wife, and became the father of Pandu, afterwards sovereign of Indraprastha.

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³ The reason for this name is thus given. One of these daughters being by a slave, it was necessary to ascertain which: a difficult matter, from the seclusion in which they were kept. It was therefore left to Vyasa to discover the pure of birth, who determined that nobility of blood would show itself, and commanded that the princesses should walk uncovered before him. The elder, from shame, closed her eyes, and from her was born the blind Dhritarashtra, sovereign of Hastinapura; the second, from the same feeling, covered herself with yellow ochre, called pandu, and henceforth she bore the name of Pandya, and her son was called Pandu; while the third stepped forth unabashed. She was adjudged not of gentle blood, and her issue was Vidura.

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Arrian gives the story thus: “It is further said that he [Herakles]¹ had a very numerous progeny of children born to

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¹ A generic term for the sovereigns of the race of Hari, used by Arrian as a proper name [?]. A section of the Mahabharata is devoted to the history of the Harikula, of which race was Vyasa.

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Arrian notices the similarity of the Theban and the Hindu Hercules, and cites as authority the ambassador of Seleucus, Megasthenes, who says: “This Herakles is held in special honour by the Sourasenoi, an Indian tribe who possess two large cities, Methora and Cleisobora. . . . But the dress which this Herakles wore, Megasthenes tells us, resembled that of the Theban Herakles, as the Indians themselves admit.” [Arrian, Indika, viii., Methora is Mathura; Growse (Mathura, 3rd ed. 279) suggests that Cleisobora is Krishnapura, ‘city of Krishna.’]

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Diodorus has the same legend, with some variety. He says: “Hercules was born amongst the Indians, and like the Greeks they furnish him with a club and lion’s hide. In strength (bala) he excelled all men, and cleared the sea and land of monsters and wild beasts. He had many sons, but only one daughter. It is said that he built Palibothra, and divided his kingdom amongst his sons (the Balika-putras, sons of Bali). They never colonized; but in time most of the cities assumed a democratical form of government (though some were monarchical) till Alexander’s time.” The combats of Hercules, to which Diodorus alludes, are those in the legendary haunts of the Harikulas, during their twelve years’ exile from the seats of their forefathers.

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How invaluable such remnants of the ancient race of Harikula! How refreshing to the mind yet to discover, amidst the ruins on the Yamuna, Hercules (Baldeva, god of strength) retaining his club and lion’s hide, standing on his pedestal at Baldeo, and yet worshipped by the Suraseni! This name was given to a large tract of country round Mathura, or rather round Surpura, the ancient capital founded by Surasena, the grandfather of the Indian brother-deities, Krishna and Baldeva, Apollo and Hercules. The title would apply to either; though Baldeva has the attributes of the ‘god of strength.’ Both are es (lords) of the race (kula) of Hari (Hari-kul-es), of which the Greeks might have made the compound Hercules. Might not a colony after the Great War have migrated westward? The period of the return of the Heraclidae, the descendants of Atreus (Atri is progenitor of the Harikula), would answer: it was about half a century after the Great War. [These speculations are worthless.]

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It is unfortunate that Alexander’s historians were unable to penetrate into the arcana of the Hindus, as Herodotus appears to have done with those of the Egyptians. The shortness of Alexander’s stay, the unknown language in which their science and religion were hid, presented an insuperable difficulty. They could have made very little progress in the study of the language without discovering its analogy to their own.

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him in India . . . [31] but that he had only one daughter.¹ The name of this child was Pandaia, and the land in which she was born, and with the sovereignty of which Herakles entrusted her, was called after her name Pandaia ” (Indika, viii.).

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¹ Arrian generally exercises his judgment in these matters, and is the reverse of credulous. On this point he says, “ Now to me it seems that even if Herakles could have done a thing so marvellous, he could have made himself longer-lived, in order to have intercourse with his daughter when she was of mature age ” [Indika, ix.].

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This is the very legend contained in the Puranas, of Vyasa (who was Hari-kul-es, or chief of the race of Hari) and his spiritual daughter Pandaia, from whom the grand race the Pandavas, and from whom Delhi and its dependencies were designated the Pandava sovereignty.

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Her issue ruled for thirty-one generations in direct descents, or from 1120 to 610 before Christ; when the military minister,² connected by blood, was chosen by the chiefs who rebelled against the last Pandu king, represented as “ neglectful of all the cares of government,” and whose deposition and death introduced a new dynasty.

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² Analogous to the maire du palais of the first races of the Franks.

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Two other dynasties succeeded in like manner by the usurpation of these military ministers, until Vikramaditya, when the Pandava sovereignty and era of Yudhishthira were both overturned.

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Sandrocottus is mentioned by Arrian to be of this line; and we can have no hesitation, therefore, in giving him a place in the dynasty of Puru, the second son of Yayati, whence the patronymic used by the race now extinct, as was Yadu, the elder brother of Puru. Hence Sandrocottus, if not a Puru himself, is connected with the chain of which the links are Jarasandha (a hero of the Bharat), Ripunjaya, the twenty-third in descent, when a new race, headed by Sanaka and Sheshnag, about six hundred years before Christ, usurped the seat of the lineal descendants of Puru; in which line of usurpation is Chandragupta, of the tribe Maurya, the Sandrocottus of Alexander, a branch of this Sheshnag, Takshak, or Snake race, a race which, stripped of its allegory, will afford room for subsequent dissertation. The Prasioi of Arrian would be the stock of Puru; Prayag is claimed in the annals yet existing as the cradle of their race. This is the modern Allahabad; and the Eranaboas must be the Jumna, and the point of junction with the Ganges, where we must place the capital of the Prasioi. [For Sandrokottos or Chandragupta Maurya see Smith, EHI, 42 ff. He certainly did not belong to the ‘Snake Race.’ The Erannoboas (Skr. Hiranyavaha, ‘gold-bearing’) is the river Son. The Prasioi (Skr. Prāchyās, dwellers in the east’) had their capital at Pātaliputra, the modern Patna (McCrindle, Alexander, 365 f.).]

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Indraprastha remained without a sovereign, supreme power being removed from the north to the southern parts of India, till the fourth, or, according to some authorities, the eighth century after Vikrama, when the throne of Yudhishthira was once more occupied by the Tuar tribe of Rajputs, claiming descents from the Pandus. To this ancient capital, thus refounded, the new appellation of Delhi was given; and the dynasty of the founder, Anangpal, lasted to the twelfth century, when he abdicated in favour of his grandson,¹ Prithiviraja, the last imperial Rajput sovereign of India, whose defeat and death introduced the Muhammadans.

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¹ His daughter's son. This is not the first or only instance of the Salic law of India being set aside. There are two in the history of the sovereigns of Anhilwara Patan. In all adoptions of this nature, when the child 'binds round his head the turban' of his adopted father, he is finally severed from the stock whence he had his birth. [For the early history of Delhi see Smith, *EHI*, 386 ff.]

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This line has also closed with the pageant of a prince, and a colony returned from the extreme west is now the sole arbiter of the thrones of Pandu and Timur.

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Britain has become heir to the monuments of Indraprastha raised by the descendants of Budha and Ila; to the iron pillar of the Pandavas, "whose pedestal² [32] is fixed in hell"; to the columns reared to victory, inscribed with characters yet unknown; to the massive ruins of its ancient continuous cities, encompassing a space still larger than the largest city in the world, whose mouldering domes and sites of fortresses,³ the very names of which are lost, present a noble field for speculation on the ephemeral nature of power and glory. What monument would Britain bequeath to distant posterity of her succession to this dominion? Not one: except it be that of a still less perishable nature, the monument of national benefit. Much is in our power: much has been given, and posterity will demand the result.

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² The khil, or iron pillar of the Pandus, is mentioned in the poems of Chand. An infidel Tuar prince wished to prove the truth of the tradition of its depth of foundation: "blood gushed up from the earth's centre, the pillar became loose (*dhili*)," as did the fortune of the house from such impiety. This is the origin of Delhi. [The inscription on the pillar proves the falsity of the legend, and the name Delhi is older than the Tuar dynasty (*IGI*, xi. 233).]

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³ I doubt if Shahpur is yet known. I traced its extent from the remains of a tower between Humayun's tomb and the grand column, the Kutb. In 1809 I resided four months at the mausoleum of Safdar Jang, the ancestor of the present [late] King of Oudh, amidst the ruins of Indraprastha, several miles from inhabited Delhi, but with which these ruins forms detached links of connexion. I went to that retirement with a friend now no more, Lieutenant Macartney, a name well known and honoured. We had both been employed in surveying the canals which had their sources in common from the head of the Jumna, where this river leaves its rocky barriers, the Siwalik chain, and issues into the plains of Hindustan. These canals on

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Princes of the Solar Line.—Vyasa gives but fifty-seven princes of the Solar line, from Vaivaswata Manu to Rama; and no list which has come under my observation exhibits more than fifty-eight, for the same period, of the Lunar race. How different from the Egyptian priesthood, who, according to Herodotus, gave a list up to that period of three hundred and thirty¹ sovereigns from their first prince, also the ‘sun-born² Menes!’

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¹ Herodotus ii. 99, 100.

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² The Egyptians claim the sun, also, as the first founder of the kingdom of Egypt.

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Ikshwaku was the son of Manu, and the first who moved to the eastward, and founded Ayodhya.

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Budha (Mercury) founded the Lunar line; but we are not told who established their first capital, Prayag,³ though we are authorized to infer that it was founded by Puru, the sixth in descent from Budha [33].

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³ The Jaisalmer annals give in succession Prayag, Mathura, Kusasthala, Dwaraka, as capitals of the Indu or Lunar race, in the ages preceding the Bharat or Great War. Hastinapur was founded twenty generations after these, by Hastin, from whom ramified the three grand Sakha, viz. Ajamidha, Vimidha, and Purumidha, which diversified the Yadu race.

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A succession of fifty-seven princes occupied Ayodhya from Ikshwaku to Rama. From Yāyati’s sons the Lunar races descend each side, fed by the parent stream, returned the waters again into it; one through the city of Delhi, the other on the opposite side. [Cunningham (ASR, i. 207 ff.) proved that the true site of the ancient city, Siri, was the old ruined fort to the north-east of Rāi Pithora’s stronghold, which is at present called Shāhpur. This identification has been disputed by C. J. Campbell (JASB, 1866, p. 206). But Cunningham gives good reasons for maintaining his opinion. The place took its name from Sher Shāh and his son Islām or Salīm Shāh. See also Carr Stephens, Archaeological and Monumental Remains of Delhi (1876), pp. 87 f., 190.]

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in unequal lengths. The lines from Yadu,¹ concluding with Krishna and his cousin Kansa, exhibit fifty-seven and fifty-nine descents from Yayati; while Yudhishthira,² Salya,³ Jarasandha,⁴ and Vahurita,⁵ all contemporaries of Krishna and Kansa, are fifty-one, forty-six, and forty-seven generations respectively, from the common ancestor Yayati.

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¹ See Table I. [not reprinted]. ² Of Delhi—Indraprastha. ³ Salya, the founder of Aror on the Indus, a capital I had the good fortune to discover. Salya is the Siharas of Abu-l Fazl. [Āīn, ii. 343.] ⁴ Jarasandha of Bihar. ⁵ Vahoorita, unknown yet. [? Bahuratha.] ⁶ Asiatic Researches, vol. v. p. 341. ⁷ Ibid. vol. v. p. 241.

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Solar and Lunar Genealogies.—There is a wide difference between the Solar and the Yadu branches of the Lunar lines; yet is that now given fuller than any I have met with. Sir William Jones’s lists of the Solar line give fifty-six, and of the Lunar (Budha to Yudhishthira) forty-six, being one less in each than in the tables now presented; nor has he given the important branch terminating with Krishna. So close an affinity between lists, derived from such different authorities as this distinguished character and myself had access to, shows that there was some general source entitled to credit.

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Mr. Bentley’s ⁶ lists agree with Sir William Jones’s, exhibiting fifty-six and forty-six respectively for the last-mentioned Solar and Lunar races. But, on a close comparison, he has either copied them or taken from the same original source; afterwards transposing names which, though aiding a likely hypothesis, will not accord with their historical belief.

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Colonel Wilford’s ⁷ Solar list is of no use; but his two dynasties of Puru and Yadu of the Lunar race are excellent, that part of the line of Puru, from Jarasandha to Chandragupta, being the only correct one in print.

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It is surprising Wilford did not make use of Sir William Jones’s Solar chronology; but he appears to have dreaded bringing down Rama to the period of Krishna, as he is known to have preceded by four generations ‘the Great War’ of the Yadu races.

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It is evident that the Lunar line has reached us defective. It is supposed so by their genealogists; and Wilford would have increased the error by taking it as the standard, and reducing the Solar to conform thereto.

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Mr. Bentley's method is therefore preferable; namely, to suppose eleven princes omitted in the Lunar between Janmejaya and Prachinvat. But as there is no [34] authority for this, the Lunar princes are distributed in the tables collaterally with the Solar, preserving contemporaneous affinity where synchronisms will authorise. By this means all hypothesis will be avoided, and the genealogies will speak for themselves.

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There is very little difference between Sir William Jones's and Colonel Wilford's lists, in that main branch of the Lunar race, of which Puru, Hastin, Ajamidha, Kuru, Santanu, and Yudhishthira are the most distinguished links. The coincidence is so near as to warrant a supposition of identity of source; but close inspection shows Wilford to have had a fuller supply, for he produces new branches, both of Hastin's and Kuru's progeny. He has also one name (Bhimasena) towards the close, which is in my lists, but not in Sir William Jones's; and immediately following Bhimasena, both these lists exhibit Dilipa, wanting in my copy of the Bhagavat, though contained in the Agni Purana: proofs of the diversity of the sources of supply, and highly gratifying when the remoteness of those sources is considered. There is also in my lists Tansu, the nineteenth from Budha, who is not in the lists either of Sir William Jones or Wilford. Again; Wilford has a Suhotra preceding Hastin, who is not in Sir William Jones's genealogies.¹

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¹ I find them, however, in the Agni Purana.

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Again; Jahnu is made the successor to Kuru; whereas the Purana (whence my extracts) makes Parikshit the successor, who adopts the son of Jahnu. This son is Viduratha, who has a place in all three. Other variations are merely orthographical.

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A comparison of Sir William Jones's Solar genealogies with my tables will yield nearly the same satisfactory result as to original authenticity. I say Sir William Jones's list, because there is no other efficient one. We first differ at the fourth from Ikshwaku. In my list this is Am-Prithu, of which he makes two names, Anenas and Prithu. Thence to Purukutsa, the eighteenth, the difference is only in orthography. To Irisuaka, the twenty-third in mine, the twenty-sixth in Sir William Jones's list, one name is above accounted for; but here are two wanting in mine, Trasadasyu and Haryaswa. There is, also, considerable difference in the orthography of those names which we have in common. Again; we differ as to the successors of Champa, the twenty-seventh, the founder of Champapur in Bihar. In Sir William’s, Sadeva succeeds, and he is followed by Vijaya; but my authorities state these both to be sons of Champa, and that Vijaya, the [35] younger, was his successor, as the elder, Sadeva, took to religious austerity. The thirty-third and thirty-sixth, Kesi and Dilipa, are not noticed by Sir William Jones; but there is a much more important person than either of these omitted, who is a grand link of connexion, and affording a good synchronism of the earliest history. This is Ambarisha, the fortieth, the contemporary of Gadhi, who was the founder of Gadhipura or Kanauj. Nala, Sarura, and Dilipa (Nos. 44, 45, 54 of my lists) are all omitted by Sir William Jones.

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This comparative analysis of the chronologies of both these grand races cannot fail to be satisfactory. Those which I furnish are from the sacred genealogies in the library of a prince who claims common origin with them, and are less liable to interpolation. There is scarcely a chief of character for knowledge who cannot repeat the genealogy of his line. The Prince of Mewar has a peculiarly retentive memory in this way. The professed genealogists, the Bhats, must have them graven on their memory, and the Charanas (the encomiasts) ought to be well versed therein.

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The first table exhibits two dynasties of the Solar race of Princes of Ayodhya and Mithila Des, or Tirhut, which latter I have seen nowhere else. It also exhibits four great and three lesser dynasties of the Lunar race; and an eighth line is added, of the race of Yadu, from the annals of the Bhatti tribe at Jaisalmer.

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Ere quitting this halting-place in the genealogical history of the ancient races, where the celebrated names of Rama, Krishna, and Yudhishthira close the brazen age of India, and whose issue introduce the present iron age, or Kali Yuga, I shall shortly refer to the few synchronic points which the various authorities admit.

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Of periods so remote, approximations to truth are the utmost to be looked for; and it is from the Ramayana and the Puranas these synchronisms are hazarded.

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Harischandra.—The first commences with a celebrated name of the Solar line, Harischandra, son of Trisanku, still proverbial for his humility.¹ He is the twenty-fourth,² and declared contemporary of Parasurama, who slew the celebrated Sahasra-Arjuna ³ of the Haihaya (Lunar) race, Prince of Mahishmati on the Nerbudda. This is confirmed by the Ramayana, which details the destruction of the military class and assumption of political power by the Brahmans, under their chief Parasurama, marking the period when the military class ‘lost the umbrella of royalty,’ and, as the Brahmans ridiculously assert, their purity of blood. This last, however, their own books sufficiently contradict, as the next synchronism will show.

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¹ [The tragical story of Harischandra is told by J. Muir, Original Sanskrit Texts, i. 88 ff.]

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² Sahyadri Khanda of the Skanda Purana.

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³ In the Bhavishya Purana this prince, Sahasra-Arjuna, is termed a Chakravartin, or paramount sovereign. It is said that he conquered Karkotaka of the Takshak, Turushka, or Snake race, and brought with him the population of Mahishmati, and founded Hemanagara in the north of India, on his expulsion from his dominions on the Nerbudda. Traditionary legends yet remain of this prince on the Nerbudda, where he is styled Sahasrabahu, or ‘with a thousand arms,’ figurative of his numerous progeny. The Takshak, or Snake race, here alluded to, will hereafter engage our attention. The names of animals in early times, planets, and things inanimate, all furnished symbolic appellations for the various races. In Scripture we have the fly, the bee, the ram to describe the princes of Egypt, Assyria, and Macedonia; here we have the snake, horse, monkey, etc. The Snake or Takshak race was one of the most extensive and earliest of Higher Asia, and celebrated in all its extent, and to which I shall have to recur hereafter. [By the Takshak race, so often referred to, the author seems to mean a body of Scythian snake-worshippers. There are instances of a serpent barrow, and of the use of the snake as a form of ornament among the Scythians; but beyond this the evidence of worship of the serpent is scanty (E. H. Minns, Scythians and Greeks, 328 f., 66 note, 294, 318, 323, etc.). It was really the Takka, a Panjāb tribe (Beal, Si-yu-ki, i. 165 ff.; Cunningham, Ancient Geography of India, 148 ff.; Stein, Rājataranginī, i. 204 f.).] In the Ramayana it is stated that the sacrificial horse was stolen by “a serpent (Takshak) assuming the form of Ananta.”

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Sagara.—This synchronism we have in Sagara, the thirty-second prince of the Solar line, the contemporary of Talajangha, of the Lunar line, the sixth in descent from Sahasra Arjuna, who had five sons preserved from the general slaughter of the military class by Parasurama, whose names are given in the Bhavishya Purana.

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Wars were constantly carried on between these great rival races, Surya and Indu, recorded in the Puranas and Ramayana. The Bhavishya describes that between Sagara and Talajangha “ to resemble that of their ancestors, in which the Haihayas suffered as severely as before.” But that they had recovered all their power since Parasurama is evident from their having completely retaliated on the Suryas, and expelled the father¹ of Sagara from his capital of Ayodhya. Sagara and Talajangha appear to have been contemporary with Hastin of Hastinapura, and with Anga, descended from Budha, the founder of Angadesa,² or Ongdesa, and the Anga race.

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¹ “Asita, the father of Sagara, expelled by hostile kings of the Haihayas, the Talajanghas, and the Sasa-vindus, fled to the Himavat mountains, where he died, leaving his wives pregnant, and from one of these Sagara was born” (Ramayana, 1. 41). It was to preserve the Solar race from the destruction which threatened it from the prolific Lunar race, that the Brahman Parasurama armed: evidently proving that the Brahmanical faith was held by the Solar race; while the religion of Budha, the great progenitor of the Lunar, still governed his descendants. This strengthened the opposition of the sages of the Solar line to Vishvamitra’s (of Budha’s or the Lunar line) obtaining Brahmanhood. That Krishna, of Lunar stock, prior to founding a new sect, worshipped Budha, is susceptible of proof.

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² Angdes, Ongdes, or Undes adjoins Tibet. The inhabitants call themselves Hungias, and appear to be the Hong-niu of the Chinese authors, the Huns (Hūns) of Europe and India, which prove this Tartar race to be Lunar, and of Budha. [Anga, the modern Bhāgalpur, is confounded with Hundes or Tibet.]

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Ambarisha.—The Ramayana affords another synchronism; namely, that Ambarisha of Ayodhya, the fortieth prince of the Solar line, was the contemporary of Gadhi, the founder of Kanauj, and of Lomapada the Prince of Angadesa.

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Krishna.—The last synchronism is that of Krishna and Yudhishthira, which terminates the [37] brazen, and introduces the Kali Yuga or iron age. But this is in the Lunar line; nor have we any guide by which the difference can be adjusted between the appearance of Rama of the Solar and Krishna of the Lunar races.

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Thus of the race of Krostu we have Kansa, Prince of Mathura, the fifty-ninth, and his cousin Krishna, the fifty-eighth from Budha; while of the line of Puru, descending through Ajamidha and Dvimidha, we have Salya, Jarasandha, and Yudhishthira, the fifty-first, fifty-third, and fifty-fourth respectively.

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The race of Anga gives Prithusena as one of the actors and survivors of the Mahabharata, and the fifty-third from Budha.

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Thus, taking an average of the whole, we may consider fifty-five princes to be the number of descents from Budha to Krishna and Yudhishthira ; and, admitting an average of twenty years for each reign, a period of eleven hundred years ; which being added to a like period calculated from thence to Vikramaditya, who reigned fifty-six years before Christ, I venture to place the establishment in India Proper of these two grand races, distinctively called those of Surya and Chandra, at about 2256 years before the Christian era ; at which period, though somewhat later, the Egyptian, Chinese, and Assyrian monarchies are generally stated to have been established,¹ and about a century and a half after that great event, the Flood.

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¹ Egyptian, under Misraim, 2188 B.C. ; Assyrian, 2059 ; Chinese, 2207. [The first Egyptian dynasty is now dated 5500 B.C. ; Chinese, 2852 B.C. ; Babylonian, 2300 B.C. Any attempt to establish an Indian chronology from the materials used by the Author does not promise to be successful.]

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Though a passage in the Agni Purana indicates that the line of Surya, of which Ikshwaku was the head, was the first colony which entered India from Central Asia, yet we are compelled to place the patriarch Budha as his contemporary, he being stated to have come from a distant region, and married to Ila, the sister of Ikshwaku.

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Ere we proceed to make any remarks on the descendants of Krishna and Arjuna, who carry on the Lunar line, or of the Kushites and Lavites, from Kusa and Lava, the sons of Rama, who carry on that of the Sun, a few observations on the chief kingdoms established by their progenitors on the continent of India will be hazarded in the ensuing Chapter [38].

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