Ikshwaku

Created by Jijith Nadumuri at 23 Jul 2011 15:11 and updated at 23 Jul 2011 15:11

VISHNU PURANA NOUN

vp.3.1	The Manu of the present period is the wise lord of obsequies, the illustrious offspring of the sun: the deities are the adityas, Vasus, and Rudras; their sovereign is Purandara: Vasishtha, Kasyapa, Atri, Jamadagni, Gautama, Viswamitra, and Bharadwaja are the seven Rishis: and the nine pious sons of Vaivaswata Manu are the kings Ikshwaku, Nabhaga, Dhrishta, Sanyati, Narishyanta, Nabhanidishta, Karusha, Prishadhra, and the celebrated Vasumat 20.
vp.3.16	Things proper to be offered as food to deceased ancestors: prohibited things. Circumstances vitiating a sraddha: how to be avoided. Song of the Pitris, or progenitors, heard by Ikshwaku.
vp.3.16	is so little as not to satisfy a cow, or smells badly, or is covered with froth. The milk of animals with undivided hoofs, of a camel, a ewe, a deer, or a buffalo, is unfit for ancestral oblations. If an obsequial rite is looked at by a eunuch, a man ejected from society, an outcast, a heretic, a drunken man, or one diseased, by a cock, a naked ascetic 3, a monkey, a village hag, by a woman in her courses or pregnant, by an unclean person, or by a carrier of corpses, neither gods nor progenitors will partake of the food. The ceremony should therefore be performed in a spot carefully enclosed. Let the performer cast sesamum on the ground, and drive away malignant spirits. Let him not give food that is fetid, or vitiated by hairs or insects, or mixed with acid gruel, or stale. Whatever suitable food is presented with pure faith, and with the enunciation of name and race, to ancestors, at an obsequial oblation, becomes food to them (or gives them nourishment). In former times, O king of the earth! this song of the Pitris was heard by Ikshwaku, the son of Manu, in the groves of Kalapa (on the skirts of the Himalaya mountains): Those of our descendants shall follow a righteous path who shall reverently present us with cakes at Gaya. May he be born in our race who shall give us, on the thirteenth of Bhadrapada and Magha, milk, honey, and clarified butter; or when he marries a maiden, or liberates a black bull 4, or performs any domestic ceremony agreeable to rule, accompanied by
vp.4.1	Before the evolution of the mundane egg, existed Brahma, who was Hiranyagarbha, the form of that supreme Brahma which consists of Vishnu as identical with the Rig, Yajur, and Sama Vedas; the primeval, uncreated cause of all worlds. From the right thumb of Brahma was born the patriarch Daksha 3; his daughter was Aditi, who was the mother of the sun. The Manu Vaivaswata was the son of the celestial luminary; and his sons were Ikshwaku, Nriga, Dhrishta, saryati, Narishyanta, Pransu, Nabhaga, Nedishta, Karusha, and Prishadhra 4.
vp.4.2	Dispersion of Revata s descendants: those of Dhrishta: those of Nabhaga. Birth of Ikshwaku, the son of Vaivaswata: his sons. Line of Vikukshi. Legend of Kakutstha; of Dhundhumara; of Yuvanaswa; of Mandhatri: his daughters married to Saubhari.
vp.4.2	Ikshwaku was born from the nostril of the Manu, as he happened to sneeze 7. He had a hundred sons, of whom the three most distinguished were Vikukshi, Nimi, and Danda. Fifty of the rest, under Sakuni, were the protectors of the northern countries. Forty eight were the princes of the south 8.
vp.4.2	Upon one of the days called Ashtaka 9, Ikshwaku being desirous of celebrating ancestral obsequies, ordered Vikukshi to bring him flesh suitable for the offering. The prince accordingly went into the forest, and killed many deer, and other wild animals, for the celebration. Being weary with the chase, and being hungered, he sat down, and ate a hare; after which, being refreshed, he carried the rest of the game to his father. Vasishtha, the family priest of the house of Ikshwaku, was summoned to consecrate the food; but he declared that it was impure, in consequence of Vikukshi s having eaten a hare from amongst it (making it thus, as it were, the residue of his meal). Vikukshi was in consequence abandoned by his offended father, and the epithet sasada (hare eater) was affixed to him by the Guru. On the death of Ikshwaku, the dominion of the earth descended to sasada 10, who was succeeded by his son Puranjaya.
vp.4.4	In consequence of the curse of Vasishtha, the Raja became a cannibal every sixth watch of the day for twelve years, and in that state wandered through the forests, and devoured multitudes of men. On one occasion he beheld a holy person engaged in dalliance with his wife. As soon as they saw his terrific form, they were frightened, and endeavoured to escape; but the regal Rakshasa overtook and seized the husband. The wife of the Brahman then also desisted from flight, and earnestly entreated the savage to spare her lord, exclaiming, "Thou, Mitrasaha, art the pride of the royal house of Ikshwaku, not a malignant fiend! it is not in thy nature, who knowest the characters of women, to carry off and devour my husband." But all was in vain, and, regardless of her reiterated supplications, he ate the Brahman, as a tiger devours a deer. The Brahman s wife, furious with wrath, then addressed the Raja, and said, "Since you have barbarously disturbed the joys of a wedded pair, and killed my husband, your death shall be the consequence of your associating with your queen." So saying, she entered the flames.
vp.4.4	saintly king was Pushya; his son was Dhruvasandhi 27; his son was Sudarsana; his son was Agnivarna; his son was sighra; his son was Maru 28, who through the power of devotion Yoga() is still living in the village called Kalapa, and in a future age will be the restorer of the Kshatriya race in the solar dynasty. Maru had a son named Prasusruta; his son was Susandhi; his son was Amarsha; his son was Mahaswat 29; his son was Visrutavat 30; and his son was Vrihadbala, who was killed in the great war by Abhimanyu, the son of Arjuna. These are the most distinguished princes in the family of Ikshwaku: whoever listens to the account of them will be purified from all his sins 31.}
vp.4.5	Kings of Mithila. Legend of Nimi, the son of Ikshwaku. Birth of Janaka. Sacrifice of Siradhwaja. Origin of Sita. Descendants of Kusadhwaja. Kriti the last of the Maithila princes.
vp.4.5	THE son of Ikshwaku, who was named Nimi 1, instituted a sacrifice that was to endure for a thousand years, and applied to Vasishtha to offer the oblations. Vasishtha in answer said, that he had been preengaged by Indra for five hundred years, but that if the Raja, would wait for some time, he would come and officiate as superintending priest. The king made no answer, and Vasishtha went away, supposing that he had assented. When the sage had completed the performance of the ceremonies he had conducted for Indra, he returned with all speed to Nimi, purposing to render him the like office. When he arrived, however, and found that Nimi had retained Gautama and other priests to minister at his sacrifice, he was much displeased, and pronounced upon the king, who was then asleep, a curse to this effect, that since he had not intimated his intention, but transferred to Gautama the duty he had first entrusted to himself, Vasishtha, Nimi should thenceforth cease to exist in a corporeal form. When Nimi woke, and knew what had happened, he in return denounced as an imprecation upon his unjust preceptor, that he also should lose his bodily existence, as the punishment of uttering a curse upon him without previously communicating with him. Nimi then abandoned his bodily condition. The spirit of Vasishtha also leaving his body, was united with the spirits of Mitra and Varuna for a season, until, through their passion for the nymph Urvasi, the sage was born again in a different shape. The
vp.4.7	family of Ikshwaku, and had by her the destroyer of the Kshatriya race, Parasurama, who was a portion of Narayana, the spiritual guide of the universe 14.
vp.4.22	Future kings of the family of Ikshwaku, ending with Sumitra.
vp.4.22	I WILL now repeat to you the future princes of the family of Ikshwaku 1.
vp.4.22	[paragraph continues] Prasenajit; his son will be Kshudraka; his son will be Kundaka 21; his son will be Suratha 22; his son will be Sumitra. These are the kings of the family of Ikshwaku, descended from Vrihadbala. This commemorative verse is current concerning them; "The race of the descendants of Ikshwaku will terminate with Sumitra: it will end in the Kali age with him 23."
vp.4.24	Thus age after age Brahmans, Kshatriyas, Vaisyas, and sudras, excellent Brahman, men of great souls, have passed away by thousands; whose names and tribes and families I have not enumerated to you, from their great number, and the repetition of appellations it would involve. Two persons, Devapi of the race of Puru, and Maru of the family of Ikshwaku, through the force of devotion continue alive throughout the whole four ages, residing at the village of Kalapa: they will return hither in the beginning of the Krita age, and, becoming members of the family of the Manu, give origin to the Kshatriya dynasties 84. In this manner the earth is possessed through every series of the three first ages, the Krita, Treta, and Dwapara, by the sons of the Manu; and some remain in the Kali age, to serve as the rudiments of renewed generations, in the same way as Devapi and Maru are still in existence.
vp.4.24	These were the verses, Maitreya, which Earth recited, and by listening to which ambition fades away like snow before the sun. I have now related to you the whole account of the descendants of the Manu; amongst whom have flourished kings endowed with a portion of Vishnu, engaged in the preservation of the earth. Whoever shall listen reverently and with faith to this narrative, proceeding from the posterity of Manu, shall be purified entirely from all his sins, and, with the perfect possession of his faculties, shall live in unequalled affluence, plenty, and prosperity. He who has heard of the races of the sun and moon, of Ikshwaku., Jahnu, Mandhatri, Sagara, and Raghu, who have all perished; of Yayati, Nahusha, and their posterity, who are no more; of kings of great might, resistless valour, and unbounded wealth, who have been overcome by still more powerful time, and are now only a tale; he will learn wisdom, and forbear to call either children, or wife, or house, or

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