The History of Indian Literature c8.380

c8.380

of this in the circumstance, that this Bráhmaṇa substantially originated and attained its final shape among the tribes of the Kurupañchálas and the neighbouring Kosala-Videhas. The king of the latter, Janaka, who is represented in it as the chief patron of the sacred doctrine it embodies, bears the same name as the father of Sítá and father-in-law of Ráma, in the Rámáyaṇa. This is, however, the only point of contact with the Rámáyaṇa legend which can here be traced, and as the name Janaka seems to have belonged to the whole family, it also virtually disappears. Nevertheless I am inclined to identify the father of Sítá with this exceptionally holy Janaka, being of opinion that Sítá herself is a mere abstraction, and that consequently she had assigned to her the most renowned father possible. As regards the special relation in which the Bráhmaṇa stands to the legend of the Mahá-Bhárata, Lassen, it is well known, takes as the fundamental feature of the latter a conflict between the Kurus and the Pañchálas, ending in their mutual annihilation, the latter being led by the family of the Páṇḍus, who came from the west. Now at the time of the Bráhmaṇa, we find the Kurus and the Pañchálas still in full prosperity,[^asterisk] and also united in the closest bonds of friendship as one people.dagger Consequently this internecine strife cannot yet have taken place. On the other hand, in the latest portions of the Bráhmaṇa, we find the prosperity, the sin, the expiation, and the fall of Janamejaya Párikshita and his brothers Bhímasena, Ugrasena, and Śrutasena, and of the whole family of the Párikshitas, apparently still fresh in the memory of the people and discussed as a subject of controversy. In the Mahá-Bhárata boundless confusion prevails regarding these names. Janamejaya and his brothers, already mentioned, are represented either as great-grandsons of Kuru, or else as the great-grandsons of the Páṇḍuid Arjuna, at whose snake-sacrifice Vaiśampáyana related the history of the