| YouTube Channel

धृतराष्ट्रवैचित्रवीर्य (dhRtarASTravaicitravIrya)

 
Vedic Reference
English
2. Dhṛtarāṣṭra Vaicitra-vīrya (‘descendant of Vicitra-
vīrya’) 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 identity^2 with
the Dhṛtarāṣṭra of the Śatapatha Brāhmaṇa, ^3 king of Kāśi, 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 Dhṛtarāṣṭra'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 Dhṛtarāṣṭra himself are all connected, but this connexion
seems to be due, as so often in the Epic, to a confused derange-
ment of great figures of the past.
1) x. 6. Cf. Weber, Indische Studien,
3, 469 et seq.
2) As does Weber, Indian Literature,
90, 114, 125
Episches im vedischen Ritual,
7, 8. Roth, St. Petersburg Dictionary,
s.v., treats them as identical.
3) xiii. 5, 4, 22.
4) Keith, Journal of the Royal Asiatic
Society, 1908, 831 et seq. This argument
is independent of the identification of
the two Dhṛtarāṣṭras, but is confirmed
by it.