The Purana Index v1.c3.s8.5

v1.c3.s8.5

By far the most important chapters in the Purāṇas are the Vamśānucarita portions. The historians of ancient India have tested this material in the light of archaeological and epigraphical evidences and found them almost accurate. The Purāṇas which speak of the royal dynasties are twelve in number. The version of the Viṣṇu Purāṇa with regard to Mauryan dynasty and of the Vāyu Purāṇa with regard to the early Guptas has found general acceptance among scholars. We are not concerned with the lunar and solar race of kings; but after the war of the Mahābhārata, which Pargiter is inclined to place about 1100 B.C, three lines of kings are mentioned. These are Purus, Ikṣvākus and the kings of Magadha. The history of these three dynasties formed largely the history of ancient India. There is a continuity in the dynastic list up to the epoch of the Andhras. The Purāṇas place the Andhras after the Kaṇva kings and calculate the intervening period between these two dynasties to be 157 years. This has to be discredited, for the first of the Andhra kings is said to be much earlier in date than the first of the Śuṅga kings.