ORIENTAL SERIES.

VISWAMITRA. 365
of Viswamitra's birth, as told in the Vislwu Purawa, is that
Gadhi had a daughter named Satyavafi, whom he gave in mar-
riage to an old Brahman of the race of Bhrigu named Jftchlka.
The wife being a Kshatriya, her husband was desirous that she
might bear a son having the qualities of a Brahman, and he gave
her a dish of food which he had prepared to effect this object.
He also gave her mother a dish intended to make her conceive a
son with the character of a warrior. At the instigation of the
mother the dishes were exchanged, so the mother gave birth to
Viswamitra, the son of a Kshatriya with the qualities
of a
and Satyavati bore Jamad-agni, the father of Parasu-
Brahman ;
rama, the warrior Brahman and destroyer of the Kshatriyas.
The most noteworthy and important feature in the legends of
Viswamitra is the active and enduring struggle between him
and the Brahman Eishi Vasishftia, a fact which is frequently
alluded to in the Jitg-veda, and is supposed to typify the con-
tentions between the Brahmans and the Kshatriyas for the
superiority. Both these JB/shis occupy a prominent position in
the Jftg-veda, Viswamitra being the Rishi of the hymns in the
third Mawdala, which contains the celebrated verse Gayatri, and
Vasishflia of those of the seventh. Each of them was at differ-
ent times the Purohita or family priest of King Su-das, a position
of considerable importance and power, the possession of which
stimulated if it did not cause their rivalry. The two sages
cursed each other, and carried their enmity into deeds of vio-
lence. Viswamitra's hundred sons are represented as having
been eaten or burnt up by the breath of Vasishflia, On the
other hand, the hundred sons of Vasishflia were, according to
one legend, eaten up by King Kalmasha-pada, into whom a
man-eating
Kakshasa had entered under the influence of Viswa-
mitra, or, according to another legend, they
were reduced to
ashes by Viswamitia's curse " and reborn as degraded outcasts
for seven hundred births." The Aitareya Brahmana states that
Viswamitra had a hundred sons, but that when he adopted his
nephew Suna/wephas he proposed to make him the eldest of his
and them Viswamitra blessed
sons. Fifty of them assented,
that they should " abound in cattle and sons ;
" the other and
elder fifty dissented, and them he cursed "that their progeny
should possess the furthest ends (of the country)," and from
them have descended many of the border tribes and most of tie