History of Dharmashastra (Ancient and Mediaeval Religious and Civil Law in India) v7.c90.102.1

v7.c90.102.1

Vyāsa is said to have been alive when the Bhārata battle was fought at the end of the Dvāpara age and he is also held to be the author of the 18 Purāṇas. The kings before the Bhārata war, the Pāṇḍava heroes and a few descendants of them and of some contemporaries of them are treated by the Matsya, Vāyu, Brahmāṇḍa and others as past (*atīta*). Adhisomakṛṣṇa or Adhisīmakṛṣṇa, who¹³⁸⁰ was 6th in direct descent from Arjuna (excluding Arjuna) is said to have been alive when the Purānas were narrated to the sages at the *sattra*. Both Vāyu (99. 282) and Matsya (271. 5) state that in the Ikṣvāku line king Divākara, 6th (or 5th in Matsya) in descent from Bṛhadbala, was alive at the time when the Purānas were narrated. Then the same Purānas (Vāyu 99. 30, Matsya 271. 23 and Brahmāṇḍa III. 74. 113) state that in the line of Jarāsandha (ruler of Magadha), who was a contemporary of the Pāṇḍavas and whose son Sahadeva was killed in the Bhārata war, there was Senājit who was a contemporary of Adhisīma kṛṣṇa and Divākara and who was 7th in descent from Sahadeva Those three are described as *vartamāna* kings in the Purāṇas and all those that came after these three are described as *bhaviṣya*. Pargiter first (AIHT p. 180) takes the total of the kings of the three dynasties, Aikṣvāka, Paurava and Māgadha that are actually named (ignoring what the Purāṇas say viz.