History of Kanauj to the Moslem Conquest c9.s1.t3.10

c9.s1.t3.10

Both Vāmana and Kaiyaṭa—the famous expositors of the Pāṇinian system of grammar—take the term Mukharyā as “a patronymic, signifying the descendants of Mukhara, who must have been the Ādipuruṣa or the first to bring his family into prominence and thereby caused it to be known after his name.”¹ It is not possible to determine whether Mukhara was a proper or an attributive name. Dr. Hīrānanda Śāstri, however, definitely assumes that it was a surname, and that the man was “so called for his being a ‘leader,’ or for his fighting in the forefront of the armies, which he led into action, as it is such characteristics only which would go to make a man the founder of a line.”²