Post No. 10,817
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Prof.Thaneswar Sarmah of Gauhati university has written more than 30 books mainly covering the Vedic period of India. In his book ‘New Trends in the Interpretation of the Vedas’, published in 2006, ,he has discussed some important historical events in the Rigveda.
Rigvedic hymn 10-98 is ascribed to one Devapi Arstisena. The story in brief runs thus:
There were three brothers Devapi ,Valhika and
Santanu , who were born in the line of Kurus, a branch of the Bharatas. At the death of their father Paratapa or Rstisena , the youngest of the three princes had to ascend the throne, as the eldest and the middlemost brothers declined to do so under certain compelling circumstances.
After Santanu’s ssumption of the throne of Hastinapur , a long draught extending for 12 years hit the state. People began to speak ill of the ruling king. They said that the draught was hurled by the gods upon them, because Santanu, the youngest of the princes took charge of the kingdom in violation of the tradition instead of the eldest Devapi, who was still alive. This has incurred the wrath of the gods, they said. Then Santanu apprised his elder brother Devapi of the situation, who did a big Yaga to bring rain. At the end of the Yaga there was abundant rainfall in the country.
This account is given Yaska’s ‘Nirukta’ , followed by the commentaries. This event was not very remote in time from the Mahabharata war.
Adopting the traditional Kaliyuga date Mr Sarmah fixed the dates of the kings.
Krishna died 37 years after the war. Abhimanyu died in the war at the age of 16 and Drona at the age of 86. Bhisma was the eldest son of Santanu.
Pratipa , his son Santanu, his son Vichitravirya.
Through Vyasa, Vichitravirya’s queen gave birth to Drtarashtra, Pandu and Vidura.
Through Kunti and Madri five Pandavas were born.
One of them, Arjuna had Abhimanyu as son.
These five generations are given 136 years (4X30+16 for Abhimanyu)
Added with Kaliyuga 3102 BCE+37+136 = 3275 BCE as the date of Devapi and Santanu.
Vyasa would have compiled the Vedas around 3215 BCE
The genealogy of Bharatas reveals that the Divodasa of Panchala line and his contemporary Ruchira of Hastinapura lived 14 generations prior to Arjuna. That means 14X30= 420 years before Arjuna.
Probably most of the hymns of Sixth Mandala of the Rig Veda, where Divodasa was referred to, are from this period.
xxx
Harappan war
Hariyuupiyaa was is also mentioned in RV.6-27.
In the same way Sarmah calculated the date of
Hariyupiya war as 3575- 3530 BCE.
The relevant piece of genealogy is :
Trksa -Bharata II- Devavaata- Srnjaya and Cayamaana-
Ahyaavartin
Srnjaya -Pijavana – Sudas
All these take us to a period around 3500 BCE.
One must remember the Mahabharata story talks about Amba, Ambika, Ambalika swayamvaram in Kasi where Bhisma did his adventure. So the Vedic period covers kingdoms in Uttarpradesh. In fact Mahabharata lists lot of kingdoms covering Bihar, Assam and Afghanistan.
Source – Thaneswar Saramah’s ‘New Trends in the Interpretation of the Vedas’.
–subham–
Tags- Rig Veda, Kings, Devapi, Santanu, Sudas, Arstisena, Bharata
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