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ORIGIN OF BRAHMIN GOTRAS
89
(stanza) of the hymn (RV.vii. 104) the son of Varuņa (Vasistha); whilc as it wcre lamenting, his soul bcing ovcrwhelmed with pain and grics, utters a cursc. Vasiştha was at that time pained as his hundred sons had been slain by Sudāsa who, in conscqucncc of a cursc, had been transformed into a dcmon (raksas). Such is the sacred tradition." Again, thc Rgveda docs not rcport this but thc Tail. Sam.vii.4.7 docs ; such a tradition in the face of all the savour supposedly shown Vasiştha by Sudās cannot be devoid of truth. I suggest that some Vasişthas were so killed, pcrhaps some of thosc not rcgularly adopted into thc Trisus. Killing the pricst or his son is a fashion sct by Indra himsclf in bchcading Visvarüpa Tvāştra, whose thrcc heads lc (or his doublc Trita, ii.11.19; 8.8.8-9) struck off. This counts as a sin only in far later times, while we still have thc Tvästrcya gotra (GPN.156.18) among thc Jamadagnis. The thrcc hcads of Tväştra bccamc varictics of partridge (Bhaddevatā vi.151) and two of these bird totcms ccrtainly remain in the gotra lists, namcly Tittiri and Kapiñjala, though ncithcr is among the Jamadagnis proper. For that matter thc dcmon Rävaņa, thc warrior villain of the Rāmāyaṇa in later and morc castern lcgcnd, counts also as a Brahmin, and surprisingly cnough thc gotra is found in thc Vasiştha group (GPN. 113.11, 177. 22,177.1) though Vasişthia is traditionally the chict tcacher of Rāma ! Even the mild Atris did not cscapc as is scen by Saptavadhri's prayer for rclcasc from imprisonment (v.78.5-6) and by x.143.1-3, 1.117.3, X.39.9, perhaps rcferring to Atri's rclcase from a ficry pit.
Thc lasso as a weapon of war is uscd by the Sagartian contingent of Xcrxes's cavalry (Hcrodotos vii.84), and by individual hcrocs in thic Shah Nameh. This may bc the original pāśa from which freedom is desired, pcrhaps symbolically, in several lymns. Thc gloss ascribes viii. 67 to fishes caught in a nct and praying for freedom, which could have been dismissed as a myth had it not bcen for the fact that the Matsya tribe appcars in vii.18; and in the Mahābhārata as the people of king Virāța. Thc Vaphio gold cups show us nets bcing used to catch wild bulls while the god Ningirsu is shown on Eannantums' stcla (stelc des vautours, in the Louvrc) cnfolding thc men of Umma in a nct and crushing those who try to cscape, whence its use for prisoners of war is also possiblc.
1 The burning by thc Saudūsas of a son of Vasiştha pamcd Sakti, is also reported by the Satyāyana and Jaiminiya Brāhmaṇas (H. Oertel, JOAS xviii, 1897 pp. 16-18, particularly 1.47). For thic cannibal Saudása in later fable, Jatakamäln 31 ctc.
Wc sccm to have a reference to both divinc and human imprisonment (of Brahmins) in iv, 12.5 ūrvād devānam ula mariysinfim. The grādiah pasuh (viii, 1.31) could be a Yadu prisoner of war, particularly when read with viii, 6.-18: Sravasi vidram janam. The traditional Yadu capital Dvāraká cannot have been the modern port of that name in Saurastra. We have a clcar narrative of the Yadus including Krana and Balarama, being driven out of Mathura by Jarāsamdha. They go westwards to found the new city in the safety of a mountain barrier : Mbh. 2, 12,9; 2, 13, 44, 49, 65. This is the logical dircction, considering the desert to the southwest of Mathura ; the original Dvärakā may thus have licen Darwaz in Afghanistan, or the capital of Kambojn in Buddhist records.
