Tribes in Ancient India c32.54

c32.54

With Vāhu, who came to the throne of Kośala several generations after Hariścandra, the Kośala power suffered a great reverse. Vāhu was defeated by his enemies, a confederacy of the Haihayas, Tālajaṅghas and other allied Kṣatriya tribes, and was forced to abdicate. He repaired to the forest where after his death his wife gave birth to a son, who was reared with great care by Ṛṣi Aurva, near whose hermitage the king had taken refuge and built his woodland home. This young prince, Sagara, had in him the making of a great king, and when he came of age he sought to revive the glories of Kośala and place it once more in the high position of suzerain power in India. Sagara almost exterminated the Haihayas. A fanciful Purāṇa story says that Sagara had one son Asamañjas by one of his queens, and sixty thousand sons by another. Abandoning Asamañjas on account of his bad conduct, Sagara employed the sixty thousand sons to defend against all aggressors the horse of the Aśvamedha in its unbridled career over the earth. In the course of their journey, they insulted Ṛṣi Kapila, and, as a result, they were reduced to ashes by him. Sagara then sent Asamañjas’ son, (mokṣa). Khaṭvāṅga’s grandson was the great Raghu, and Raghu’s grandson was Daśaratha, the father of Rāma, in whom the glory of the Kośalan royal house reached its culmination.