________________
KURU
69
time was soon to come when they would listen even to the heterodox teaching of new faiths that grew up in Eastern India. For the present Kuru Brāhmaṇas (e.g., Ushasti Chākrāyaṇa) took an active part in discussions about Brahman and ūtman at the court of Videha. The intellectual life of the eastern kingdom must have been greatly stirred by the exodus of Kurus and perhaps also of the Pañchālas that took place about this time. An exodus from Constantinople in a like manner enriched the life of the people of western Europe in the fifteenth century A.D.
If the Purāņic list of Janamejaya's successors be accepted as historical, then it would appear that Nichakshu was probably the Kuru king of Hāstinapura in the time of Janaka. 1. Janamejaya ... 1. Indrota Daivāpa Saunaka 2. Satānika ... 2. Driti Aindrota (son and pupil) 3. Aśva-medha-datta 3. Pulugha Prachinayogya
(pupil)
4. Adhisima-krishņa 4. Pulushi Satyayajña (pupil) 5. Nichakshu ... 5. Somaśushma Satyayajñi
(pupil); Janaka's contempo
rary. Curiously enough, it is Nichakshu who is represented in the Purūnas as the remover of the seat of government from Hāstinapura to Kaušāmbí. We have some indication that the city of Kaušāmbi really existed about this time. The Satapatha Brāhmana makes Proti Kaušāmbeya a contemporary of Uddālaka Āruņi who figured in the court of Janaka. It is thus clear that Kaušāmbeya was a contemporary of Janaka. Now, Harisvāmin in his commentary on the Satapatha Brāhmana understood
1 Cf. Weber. Ind. Lit., p. 123 ; Vedic Index, I, 193.
