Studies in the Geography of Ancient and Medieval India c5.s1.9

c5.s1.9

Although exaggeration with reference to the achievements of Indian kings is a remarkable feature of royal praśastis of the medieval period, it is by no means absent even in the earliest records, both literary and epigraphic. There are the following two gāthās in the Śatapatha-Brāhmaṇa, XIII, 5, 4, 11 and 13 : (1) अष्टासप्ततिं भरतो दौःषन्तिरयमुनामनु गङ्गायां वृत्रघ्नेऽबधनात् पञ्चपञ्चाशत् हयान् इति । (2) परःसहस्रान्निन्द्रयाश्वान् मेध्यान् य आहरद् विजित्य पृथिवीं सर्वामिति । According to the first gāthā, Bharata, son of Duṣyanta,² performed seventyeight Aśvamedhas on the Yamunā and fiftyfive on the Gaṅgā, i.e. one hundred and thirtyfive horse-sacrifices in all. But according to the second gāthā, Bharata celebrated more than one thousand Aśvamedhas after having conquered the whole earth. Critics can hardly fail to note the difference between the definite nature of the statements in the first gāthā and the vagueness of the number ‘more than one thousand’ and of the expression ‘after having conquered the whole earth’ in the second *gāthā*.