ORIENTAL SERIES.

366 WSWAM1TRA.
Dasyus. The Maha-bharata has a legend of Yiswamitra having
commanded the river Saraswati to bring his rival Yasish&a that
lie might kill him, and of having turned it into blood "when it
flowed in another direction and carried Yasish/ha out of his
reach.
Yiswamitra's relationship to Jamad-agni naturally places him
in a prominent position
in the Kamayafta. Here the old animo-
sity between him and Yasishftta again appears. He as a king
paid a visit to Yasishtfha's hermitage, and was most hospitably
entertained ; but he wished to obtain Yasish&a's wondrous cow,
the Kama-dhenu, which had furnished all the dainties of the
but were all declined The
feast. His offers were immense,
cow resisted and broke away when he attempted to take her by
force, and when he battled for her, his armies were defeated by
the hosts summoned up by the cow, and his " hundred sons were
reduced to ashes in a moment by the blast of Yasishtfha's mouth."
A long and fierce combat followed between Yasishh.a and
Yiswamitra, in which the latter was defeated; the Kshatriya
had to submit to the humiliation of acknowledging his inferiority
to the Brahman, and he therefore resolved to work out his
own elevation to the Brahmanical order.
While he was engaged in austerities for
accomplishing his
object of becoming a Brahman he became connected with King
Tri-sanku. This monarch was a descendant of King Ikshwaku,
and desired to perform a sacrifice in virtue of which he might
ascend bodily to heaven. His priest, Yasishtfha, declared it to
be impossible, and that priest's hundred sons, on being applied
to, refused to undertake what their father had declined. When
the king told them that he would seek some other means of
accomplishing his object, they condemned him to become a
Chawdala, In this condition he had resort to Yiswamitra, and
he, taking pity on him, raised him to heaven in his bodily form,
notwithstanding the opposition
of the sons of Yasishtfha. The
Hari-vansa version of this story is different. Tri-sanku, also
called Satya-vrata, had attempted the abduction of the young
wife of a citizen. For this his father banished him, and condemned
him to " the performance of a silent penance for twelve
years." During his exile there was a famine, and Tri-sanku
succoured and supported the wife and family of Yiswamitra,
who were reduced to the direst extremity in that sage's absenca