Vedic Index of Names and Subjects v1.c3.s21.1124

v1.c3.s21.1124

Puru-kutsa is the name of a king who is mentioned several times in the Rigveda. In one passage¹ he is mentioned as a contemporary of Sudās, but whether as a foe, according to Ludwig,² or merely as a contemporary, according to Hillebrandt,³ is uncertain. In two other passages⁴ he is mentioned as victorious by divine favour, and in another⁵ he appears as a king of the Pūrus and a conqueror of the Dāsas. His son was Trasadasyu,⁶ who is accordingly called Paurukutsya⁷ or Paurukutsi.⁸ Different conclusions have been drawn from one hymn of the Rigveda⁹ in which the birth of Purukutsa’s son, Trasadasyu, is mentioned. The usual interpretation is that Purukutsa was killed in battle or captured, whereupon his wife secured a son to restore the fortunes of the Pūrus. But Sieg¹⁰ offers a completely different interpretation. According to him the word daurgahe, which occurs in the hymn, and which in the ordinary view is rendered ‘descendant of Durgaha,’ an ancestor of Purukutsa, is the name of a horse, the hymn recording the success of an Aśvamedha (‘horse sacrifice’) undertaken by Purukutsa for his wife, as by kings in later times, to secure a son. This interpretation is supported by the version of daurgahe given in the Śatapatha,¹¹ but is by no means certain. Moreover, if Purukutsa was a contemporary of Sudās, the defeat of the Pūrus by Sudās in the Dāśarājña¹² might well have been the cause of the troubles from which Purukutsānī, by the birth of Trasadasyu, rescued the family. In the Śatapatha Brāhmaṇa¹³ Purukutsa is called an Aikṣvāka.