History of Kanauj to the Moslem Conquest c8.s5.27

c8.s5.27

This derivation, however, does not seem to be correct. First, it goes against most of the *Purāṇas*, and those that give it do not in any way merit superior credence. The *Agni* is a late production, and the other two mar their value by their inconsistent accounts. Secondly, on this point the *Mahābhārata* also appears to make confusion worse confounded. At one place it refers to Ajamīḍha as belonging to the race of Bharata,⁵ and thus makes Viśvāmitra—if the above genealogy be correct—a remote descendant of Bharata. Elsewhere again it represents Bharata as the grandson of Viśvāmitra begotten on his forsaken daughter, Śakuntalā, by Duṣmanta or Duṣyanta.¹ These conflicting statements would lead us to believe that Viśvāmitra was both an ancestor and a descendant of Bharata—a supposition which is impossible in the natural course of things. One of them must, therefore, be untrue, and as the story of Duṣyanta is “one of the best alleged tales in ancient tradition”² it follows that Viśvāmitra was anterior to Bharata and consequently to Ajamiḍha, a descendant of Bharata.