About the Post:
The original version of Vyasa’s Itihasa, containing 8,800 verses, was named ‘Jaya’; this magnum opus of Vyasa focused on the Kurukshetra War. Later, it grew into the ‘Bharata’ – a composition of 24,000 verses – when Vyasa’s disciple Vaishampayana narrated this family history of the Kurus to Janamejaya (great-grandson of Arjuna). Finally, it took the form of ‘Mahabharata’, possessing over 90,000 verses when recited by Ugrasrava to an assemblage of sages in the Naimisha Forest. As already said in Part 1 of this topic, we need to analyse the apparent connection between the legendary Kurus and the historical Harappans to get a better understanding of India’s proto-history; this post, which you are reading now, constitutes the second part of the sequel series titled ‘Truth Behind the Decline of Harappans’.
Sneak Peek:
The story of the Kuru Dynasty and that of the Harappan Civilization evidently travel in parallel with each other. The first part – under this topic – gave a brief on the Harappans and an overview of the Kurus.
Continue reading part-2 to get a glimpse of the conspicuous link between the tangible Harappans and the intangible Kurus………
Successors of Yudhishthira:
The Pandavas emerged victorious in the Kurukshetra War, and hence Yudhishthira (the eldest of the Pandavas) became the king; he ruled the Kuru dominion with Hastinapur as the administrative centre. Abhimanyu (son of Arjuna) was the father of Parikshit; since Abhimanyu and the other progenies of the Pandavas were slain in the Kurukshetra War, Parikshit was declared the successor of Yudhishthira. At one point, when King Parikshit came to know that he would die in a week due to a curse, he sought salvation by listening to the ‘Bhagavata Purana’ which was narrated to him by Shuka, the benevolent son of Vyasa. This Purana agrees with the Mahabharata in announcing Janamejaya as the legal heir of Parikshit, and it additionally prophesies the descendants of Janamejaya who would continue to rule the Kuru kingdom in the future; the same detail is found in the ‘Vishnu Purana’ also, but with a negligible variance. Apart from these two holy texts, a contemporary book titled ‘The True History and the Religion of India’, authored by Swami Prakashanand Saraswati, gives details about 30 generations of King Yudhishthira who ruled Indraprastha for a total period of 1720 years, 11 months and 10 days. Here, ‘Indraprastha’ probably refers to the entire Kuru Kingdom because, just before departing from this mortal world, the Pandavas had ceded Indraprastha to the descendants of Lord Krishna (maternal cousin of Pandavas), who were rendered homeless due to the submergence of Dvaraka (Krishna’s city), by the sea waters, following Lord Krishna’s demise.
Mahabharata Chronology:
In an earlier post, we had fixed circa 3300–2600 BCE as the plausible date of core Mahabharata events; we also learnt that, as indicated by certain ancient Indian texts, the birth of Kali-yuga occurred in 3102 BCE, which incidentally was also the approximate date of the antecedent passing away of Lord Krishna.
Table 1 (seen below) gives the list of successors of King Yudhishthira, as mentioned in the Bhagavata Purana and the Vishnu Purana; one can notice that the two catalogues agree with each other, but for a trivial discrepancy. The table also provides the details of 30 generations of king Yudhishthira, as given in ‘The True History and the Religion of India’ (pages 503–504); the names found in this document hardly comply with those in the other two lists, but we have to consider the fact that almost every royal personality of ancient India possessed several names and honorary titles. Nevertheless, the number of rulers quoted in the concerned three records are more are less the same; those names which appear (or rather sound/spell similar) in all three lists are highlighted with the same colour. The ‘End of Reign’ of each ruler (given in Table 1) is calculated based on the traditional date (3102 BCE) of Krishna’s demise, which, as per the Mahabharata, marked the termination of Yudhishthira’s reign.
According to the Bhagavata Purana, Nemicakra is the 8th ruler, while as per Vishnu Purana, Nichakra is the 7th monarch; we need to remember that these names appear under the list of successors who ruled the Kuru entity, post-Mahabharata War. However, we have to conclude that Nemicakra and Nichakra are one and the same since Bhagavata Purana and Vishnu Purana refer to Nemicakra and Nichakra, respectively, as the king who would be forced to shift the capital of the Kuru Kingdom from Hastinapur to Kausambi, following devastation by the floodwaters of the River Ganga.
Wikipedia states that Kausambi, owing to its strategic geographical location, emerged as an important trading centre during the period of Buddha; this historical fact suggests that the same could be the case with the even more ancient Kausambi of the Kurus. Thus, by shifting their capital to Kausambi, the Kurus plausibly experienced an increased fortune in their trade realm; not to forget that the relocation of the administrative centre occurred during the reign of Nemicakra/Nichakra.
If we observe Table 1 with the notion of deducing the plausible period of Nemicakra alias Nichakra’s reign, we arrive at a date that falls anywhere between circa 2750 BCE and 2600 BCE; incidentally, the Mature Harappan phase—marked by the extensive trade activities of Harappans—began in circa 2600 BCE.
Closing Message:
I hope this post has accomplished the task of giving an insight into the topic; the discussion will be pursued in the upcoming Part 3.
End-Note:
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