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OCTOBER, 1928)
THE HOME OF THE UPANISADS
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place and these were just the peoples who could foster the growth of independent spiritual inquiry which the Upanişads also exhibit. Buddhism was an open rebellion against the Vedic religion ; but the Upanigada also involved some defiance of the ceremonial cult, though less open ; and the eastern districts appear to have been marked out for carrying out this mission of protest. The people who could raise the standard of Buddhism, were intellectually fitted to give rise to the Upanişadic cult also. And the evidence of the Upanişads show that the cult had its organised beginnings and its first settled home in the districts of Videha and also perhaps Magadha. Besides the evidence discussed up to now, there is the evidence of the traditions preserved in the Puranas, to which we may now turn.
(iii) The Vianu Purana, part iv, gives an account of several royal dynasties, including dynasties of the Kurus and the Pañcâlas. Needless details are sometimes introduced in these accounts and more than once is it said that he who listens to these narrations, escapes all sin (etepam caritam srnvan sarva-papaih pramucyate). But only in the case of the Janaka dynasty of Videha-Mithild is it said that most of tho kings of that dynasty were patrons of Åtmavidyå: Ityete maithildh; prácuryyena elesdm átmavidyasrayino bhupala bhavisyantiti (iv. 5. 14). No other dynasty has received a similar compliment from the author of the Visnu Purdna. If any royal family, therefore, was prominent for its support of Brahma-vidyd, it was that of Videha.
The Bhagavata Purana similarly gives detailed accounts of various royal dynasties, distributed widely over different parts of the country, and including the Yadus and the Ikşakus and & host of others. But in the account of the Janaka dynasty, the significant statement is made that the members of that dynasty were adepts in Atmavidya-ele vai maithild rajan dtmavidyd- utódradah (ix. 13. 27). It is remarkable that this virtue is not attributed to any other dynasty, not even the family of Krsna himself, the propounder of the Bhagavad-gita.
In the Mahabharata, iii. 132, we find an interesting picture of the disputations on Brahmavidya that took place at the court of Videha; and in xii. 325, of the same book, Suka, son of Vyásais gent by his father to Janaka, the king of Mithila, for instruction in Moksa-vidya. The same story in an identical form is repeated in Yoga-vásiotha, ii. 1. In several other places also in the Mahabharata, the name of Janaka of Videha figures prominently in connection with Brahma-vidya.
Accounts of the royal dynasty of Mithild are not found in all the Puranas. But wherever mention is made of this remarkable dynasty, whether in the Purâņas, or in the Mahabharata, or in the Yoga-vdsistha, the fact is almost invariably emphasized that the court of Videha was renowned as almost an exclusive seat of Brahma-vidyd. No other dynasty appears to have received a similar compliment for its patronage of Brahma-vidyd ; and no other place has been commemorated as an equally great seat of this knowledge. This is a very significant fact. Teachers of Brahma-vidyd may have had their homes in other places, even in far off countries ; but the court of Videha was the centre, it seems, to which they all gravitated. Under the distinguished patronage of the kings of Videha, the teachers of Brahma-vidya, of whatsoever race and country they may have been, had their common meeting-ground in that country. And systematic instruction also appears to have been imparted to earnest inquirers : it almost had the semblance of a university (cf. Mahabharata, iii. 132 ; Br. Up., iii. iv).
In the Purants, the honour of being the home of the Upanisadio culture is bestowed almost exclusively on Videha. Other dynasties of princes have been celebrated for achievements in other directions, for their wars and conquests and great sacrificial performans; but none have been half as renowned as the Janaka dynasty for proficiency in Brahma-vidya. And other lands have been famous for other events; but, in the Puranas, the land of Videha has little other history to its credit, except the hospitality it extended to the teachers of Brahma-vidyd—whether homeless itinerants or house-owning fathers of families.
The importance of Videha in this respect is proved by another fact from the Purâņas. The Mahabharata, we are told, was narrated in the form in which it has come down to us,
