Vedic Index of Names and Subjects v1.c3.s19.218

v1.c3.s19.218

2. Dhr̥tarāṣṭra Vaicitra-vīrya (‘descendant of Vicitravīrya’) is mentioned in a passage of the Kāṭhaka Saṃhitā,¹ which is, unhappily, far from intelligible. But there is no ground for supposing that he was a Kuru-Pañcāla king; he seems rather to have lived at some distance from the Kuru-Pañcālas. There is no good reason to deny his identity² with the Dhr̥tarāṣṭra of the Śatapatha Brāhmaṇa,³ king of Kāśī, who was defeated, when he attempted to offer a horse sacrifice, by Sātrājita Śatānīka. The fact that the latter was a Bharata also points to Dhr̥tarāṣṭra’s not having been a Kuru-Pañcāla at all. In the Kāṭhaka Saṃhitā he appears as having a dispute with Vaka Dālbhi; but even assuming that the latter was a Pañcāla, there is nothing to hint that the former was a Kuru or that this dispute is a sign of an early hostility of Kuru and Pañcāla.⁴ It is true that in the Epic Śantanu and Vicitravīrya and Dhr̥tarāṣṭra himself are all connected, but this connexion seems to be due, as so often in the Epic, to a confused derangement of great figures of the past.