* For Vivasvat’s parentage, see Hv 3.49–52 above. The story of his wife is partially encapsulated in Rigveda 10.17.1–2.
† In the Vedic myth of Mārtanda, he is born before he is properly formed, and is then refashioned.
* The land of the Northern Kurus is a mythical land of bliss located in the far north.
† The second Manu, because he so resembles his (half-)brother, is inadvertently named after his mother.
* In Vedic literature the Ashvins are called the Nāsatyas, a name whose oft-cited connection with the nose (nās) could explain some details of the present story.
† For Yama’s connection to the ancestors, see Hv 6.20–21 above.
‡ For the Sāvarnas, see Hv 7.39–40 above.
§ Shanaishchara is the planet Saturn, which takes nearly thirty years to complete its orbit around the sun.
* This is a play on Manusmriti 8.15, which states that contravening established practice causes harm to the perpetrator.
* For Sukanyā and Chyavana, see Mbh 3.121–25.
* In fact, of the nine sons of Manu listed at 9.1–2, only seven have since been mentioned (Nābhāga twice, at 9.21 and 9.36): Prāmshu and Nābhānedishtha have not been mentioned.
† According to one prevailing view, eating meat is only permissible if the food has been ritually consecrated. See Mbh 3.199.11; Manusmriti 5.31–33.
* For a longer version of this story, see Mbh 3.192–95.
* Perhaps a comparison with the setting sun is implied.
* A drought generally indicates that the king is either negligent or non-existent.
† Vishvāmitra and Vasishtha are famous rivals.
* The centrepiece of the marriage rite is the couple’s taking seven steps around a fire. Satyavrata, who refers to himself here in the third person, feels that he has been punished for a worse misdeed than the one he committed.
† Here Vasishtha is perhaps addressing Satyavrata’s son (see next verse).
‡ In some manuscripts, a later interpolation supplies a list of these ten vices.
* Compare the Vikukshi affair at Hv 9.42–43 above.
† Vaishampāyana mentioned Harishchandra previously in connection with Yudhishthira Pāndava’s rājasūya ritual (e.g. at Mbh 2.11.52–64).
* In the ancient Indian horse sacrifice, the horse roams at will for a year, accompanied by an army, while the king stays at home. The king’s army must defeat anyone who obstructs the horse’s progress. At the end of the year, the horse is brought home and ceremonially sacrificed, and the king’s chief queen copulates with the dead horse.
* For the story of Sagara and sons, see also Mbh 3.104–06.
* For the story of Gangā’s descent, see Mbh 3.107–08.
† For Rituparna and his dicing skills, see the story of Nala, Mbh 3.50–78.
‡ For the story of Kalmāshapāda, see Mbh 1.166–68, 173 and 14.55–57.
§ For the story of Rāma, see Mbh 3.258–75.
** For the two Nalas, see vv. 69 and 76 above, respectively.
* At Hv 8.7 Manu Vaivasvata was called the god of ancestral rites, but at Hv 10.80 his father Vivasvat was. Hence Janamejaya’s question. But Vaishampāyana ignores it until he mentions this title at 13.64–65, where it refers to Manu, and he explains why.
† Bhīshma lay mortally wounded on a bed of arrows after the Kurukshetra war, narrating teachings at length in response to Yudhishthira’s questions (Mbh 12.56–353 and 13.1–151). The section of dialogue between Yudhishthira and Bhīshma that follows here in the Harivamsha stands in parallel with the section on the same subject at Mbh 13.87–92.
* Bhīshma tells much the same story—of the hand breaking through the earth at an ancestral rite for Shantanu, and Bhīshma sticking to protocol and ignoring it—to Yudhishthira at Mbh 13.83.11–28, though there it is the collective ancestors who applaud and reward Bhīshma’s scruples.
† This heir is not Bhīshma. To facilitate Shantanu’s second marriage, Bhīshma vowed never to be king or to have children (Mbh 1.94.77–89). Shantanu died while both of his sons by Satyavatī were still alive (1.95.4–5); the dynastic crisis occurred only later, after Vichitravīrya’s untimely death (1.96.57–59).
* Compare Mbh 1.94.94, where Shantanu grants Bhīshma this ability following Bhīshma’s great vow. It is because of this that Bhīshma can live on after the war, waiting until after the winter solstice to die, and talking with Yudhishthira in the meantime.
* The cause of Mārkandeya’s longevity is unmentioned elsewhere in the Mahābhārata.
* Only six sons of Brahmā are listed here, despite the mention of seven in the previous verse. Compare Hv 1.29, where Marīchi—the one left out here—is first in the list.
† Sanatkumāra here refers to (and includes himself in) the group of seers who are disengaged from the world, in contrast to his listed younger brothers who are engaged with it. These two groups of seers are differentiated and described by Vishnu-Nārāyana himself at Mbh 12.327.60–66.
* The word for ‘austerities’ is tapas, which also means ‘heat’. Wilful endurance generates a thermal power which can be used in various ways, including aggressively.
* For Jaigīshavya, see Mbh 9.49.
* The tale mentioned here is that of the Bhārata war, which originates with the formless Agnishvātta ancestors through Satyavatī’s backstory as Achhodā. Satyavatī’s birth as King Vasu’s daughter is described at the very start of the Bhārata tale (Mbh 1.57.36–55).
† Svadhā is the ritual utterance that accompanies the ancestral offering (see v. 66 below). The ‘fire poet’ is presumably a reference to the cremation fire (compare v. 61 below).
* Here and also below (in Hv 87–89) the term ‘southern’ is used in a relative sense. Rather than referring to what we would think of as South India, it refers to anything south of the Vindhya mountains. For Narmadā and the solar lineage, see Hv 9.86 above.
* This refers to the story told in the previous chapter.
* The previous paragraph or two were apparently as spoken by Sanatkumāra.
* Yudhishthira mentioned at Mbh 12.27.10 that Bhīshma killed Ugrāyudha in battle, so he has at least heard that fact before, though perhaps not the details.
† For Yavīnara in his lineal context, see Hv 23.97 below.
‡ Satyavatī is Bhīshma’s stepmother.
* For the four methods of triumphing over enemies, with battle as the last resort (because its outcome is unpredictable), see also Manusmriti 7.198–200.
† The Harivamsha narrates the demon Shambara’s death at the hands of Krishna’s son Pradyumna (Hv 99), and also once mentions Krishna as Shambara’s killer (Hv 97.25; cf. Mbh 5.66.4). However, Shambara is earlier known as the defeated enemy of Indra (Rigveda 1.54.4; 1.101.2; etc.).
* That is, Janamejaya (vv. 27–28 above).
† The Pāndavas won their wife Draupadī in Kāmpilya (Mbh 1.153–91). The rivalry between Drona (the Pāndavas’ martial-arts teacher) and Drupada (their father-in-law) is narrated at Mbh 1.121–28 up to the point mentioned here, but it stretches into the Kurukshetra war and is continued by their sons, culminating in Drona’s son Ashvatthāman’s nocturnal slaughter of all Drupada’s male descendants (Mbh 10.8).
‡ This seems to refer back to Hv 13.66–70.
* This refers to the dedication of the cow to the ancestors. Compare Hv 16.27 below, and see Hv 14.6 above: the effect of that deed governs the whole sequence of following births.
† Brahminy ducks are notable for appearing in loyal mating pairs.
‡ The name Panchika occurs only here; elsewhere the name occurring in this position is Gālava (Hv 15.12, 68) or Pānchāla (Hv 18.17–19; 19.19, 29).
* Before the cow was killed, four were wicked and three virtuous (Hv 16.4–12), but here three are greedy and four austere.
* See 13.41–47 above; Kritvī is the descendant of the Barhishad ancestors. The description of Kritvī in this and the next verse recalls the earlier description of her mother Pīvarī.
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�� The fifth of the seven is Chiddradarshana, as per Hv 16.29–30 above: Svatantra / Brahmadatta is the seventh, but here he has been mentioned before his two accomplices.
* The invocatory priest is a specialist in the verses of the Rigveda; the chanting priest, in the chants of the Sāmaveda; and the operating priest, in the formulae of the Yajurveda. For the creation of these three types of ritual utterance, see Hv 1.35 above. The supervising priest, unmentioned here, is a specialist in all the Vedas.
* Vibhrāja is reborn as his own great-grandson; see Hv 15.25 above. He is thus reborn as the son of one of the birds, as per his wish at 18.10.
* See again Hv 12.36–37 above: the moon waxes because ancestral offerings are made.
§ Ushanas, under his other name of Shukra, is identified with the planet Venus. He sides with Soma in this dispute (hence so do the demons, whose priest he is).
* Budha is identified with the planet Mercury.
† The story of Ilā was told at Hv 9.3–20 above.
‡ For the story of Soma’s consumption, see Mbh 9.34.36–77 and 12.329.45–46. Judging by the context here in the Harivamsha, Soma’s problem may concern the ancestral offerings made by his descendants, for it is not immediately evident that Purūravas will be located in the moon’s lineage. The moon’s successive waxing and waning may imply a compromise solution; indeed, at Mbh 1.70–90 Janamejaya’s lineage comes down through the sun, Manu, and Ilā, not through the moon and Budha.
* The four kinds of creature are those born from wombs, from eggs, from sweat, and from shoots. See Mbh 12.160.20; 14.42.19; 14.87.8.
* These golden goddesses are perhaps the goddesses mentioned at Hv 20.5–8 above.
† On Soma’s sovereignty, compare Hv 4.2–3 above.
‡ Brihaspati is identified with the planet Jupiter. Tārakā’s name means ‘star’ or ‘constellation’.
* Urvashī is a celestial nymph. At Mbh 1.68.67 the six most excellent celestial nymphs are listed, and Urvashī is listed first.
* For Prabhā, see Hv 3.71 above.
* For the story of Yayāti, see Mbh 1.70–88. Following a quarrel, Sharmishthā was forced to become Devayānī’s servant, so when Devayānī became Yayāti’s wife, Sharmishthā came too.
* For the story of Janamejaya’s brahminicide, see Mbh 12.146–48. There the king is said to have killed the brahmin accidentally.
† For the story of Vasu and Indra, see Mbh 1.57.1–31.
‡ As narrated at Mbh 2.12–22, Krishna’s enemy Jarāsandha—Vasu’s grandson—was killed by Bhīma Pāndava. For the chariot, see Mbh 2.22.11–27. For more on Jarāsandha, see, in due course, Hv 80–82 and 87 below.
* For these curses, see Mbh 1.79.8–24. Turvasu was cursed to rule over barbarians; Druhyu was cursed that his descendants would lose their royal rank; and Anu was cursed that his descendants would tend to die young.
† Vishvāchī is listed at Mbh 1.68.67 as one of the six most excellent celestial nymphs.
* Janamejaya’s list of Yayāti’s sons is not in birth order. He mentions Sharmishthā’s sons first, and Pūru, his own ancestor, first of all.
* Svarbhānu is an eclipse demon.
† The recurrence of the names Atri and Soma comes together with the motif, from the story of Soma as told above (at Hv 20.7–13, and also from the story of Yayāti told at Mbh 1.81–88), of an interrupted fall (here the sun’s) from the sky.
‡ The sons are named after their ancestor Atri (they are Ātreyas), and after what their father said to the sun.
§ Picking up Kaksheyu from Hv 23.6 above.
* This Bali is a reincarnation of Virochana’s son Bali, king of the demons (see Mbh 12.216–20, and Hv 3.60–61 above).
† The four classes are brahmins, kshatriyas, vaishyas, and shūdras.
‡ See Mbh 3.110–13 for this story. Lomapāda’s successor is Shāntā’s son by Rishyashringa.
* Picking up Richeyu from Hv 23.7 above.
† For the story of Bharata and his birth, see Mbh 1.62–69.
‡ This may be a reference to Mbh 1.89.17; but there is no mention of the mothers’ rage there.
* For King Alarka as a yogi, see also Mbh 14.30.
† Picking up Suhotra from Hv 23.53 above.
* Vishvāmitra adopted Shunahshepa Devarāta and set him above his other sons. See Aitareya Brāhmana 7.13–18 (Doniger O’Flaherty 1988: 19–25); Rāmāyana 1.60–61.
† For the story of this Drishadvatī, see Mbh 5.112–21 (where she is called Mādhavī).
* For this Janamejaya, see again Hv 22.7–12 above.
* Vichitravīrya dies without issue, but his two widows are his field: their produce is considered lineally his. See Mbh 1.97–100; Manusmriti 9.32–70, 145.
† For Avikshit’s son Marutta (who resembles this Marutta in some other details), see Mbh 14.4–10.
* This account of Nārada’s parentage is additional to those given at Hv 3.9 above.
* For the story of Arjuna Kārtavīrya and Rāma Jāmadagnya, see Mbh 3.115–17; 12.49. After Rāma kills Arjuna, Arjuna’s sons retaliate and suffer in turn (Mbh 3.117.7; 12.49.45).
† For this wish, see v. 142 above.
‡ The details in this and the next verse don’t tally with what is said about the Yādava genealogy elsewhere. Vrisha and Vrishana may perhaps be euphonic nicknames of characters known also by other names. This verse evokes Rigveda 5.36.5 and 5.40.1–4, where Indra is repeatedly called Vrishan the Bull and Vrishana the Bull.
* Here Prasena should perhaps be Sudeva, as per Hv 28.42 below. Elsewhere Prasena is Nighna’s son (Hv 28.11–24, etc.).
† Picking up Chitraka from Hv 24.3 above.
* Picking up Devamīdhusha from Hv 24.1 above.
† Picking up Anamitra (briefly) from Hv 24.1 above.
‡ For the story of Ekalavya, see Mbh 1.123.
§ Vishvaksena (whose Army is Everywhere) is a name of Krishna Vāsudeva, and Chārudeshna is Krishna’s son (see Hv 88.37 and 98.5). But there is also a Vishvaksena son of Brahmadatta the Pānchāla (see Hv 15–19 above).
* Two wives of Vasudeva (Rohinī and Devakī) have been named in vv. 1–4 above, but only a further three are named here. A list of seven occurs at Hv 27.27 below.
† There is some inconsistency here, because Vasudeva’s wife Vrikadevī is elsewhere said to be the daughter of Devaka (Hv 27.26–27). An Agāvaha is elsewhere said to be the son of Gada (Hv 98.15–16).
* Jarāsandha had been threatening Mathurā for some time (see Hv 80–82 below). Kālayavana was his latest ally.
* The chapter is seemingly modelled on the lunar month, with fourteen generations between Kroshtu and Jyāmagha and a further fourteen between Jyāmagha and Madhu (who might thus be suspected of being Kroshtu’s double).
† Since Kosala is the land of the Ikshvākus, Kausalyā would be the descendant of Ikshvāku mentioned at Hv 26.27, and hence, as confirmed by the repeated play on the word sattva, Purutvat and Satvat would be the same person, perhaps called the Mother because he gives his name to the Sātvatas. The four sons of Satvat, just one of whom was singled out at Hv 26.27, may perhaps be equivalent to Kroshtu’s four sons as already detailed.
* Picking up Andhaka from Hv 27.2 above.
† For Vasudeva’s wives, compare Hv 25.1–8 above.
* Picking up Bhajamāna from (presumably) Hv 27.16 above.
† Rājādhideva’s daughters have the same names as Chitraka’s daughters (at Hv 24.13 above and Hv 28.44 below).
‡ For Kroshtu’s wives, compare Hv 24.1 above.
§ This arrangement of Kroshtu’s sons differs slightly from the earlier version.
* Perhaps picking up Vrishni from Hv 27.2 above, where Vaishampāyana promised to list the descendants of Bhajamāna, Devāvridha, Andhaka, and Vrishni (Vrishni’s are still pending). Yudhājit was mentioned at Hv 24.1 and 28.10, as the son of Kroshtu and Mādrī.
† Picking up Chitraka from Hv 28.36 above.
‡ This Babhru (usually called Akrūra) is to be distinguished
from the Babhru mentioned at Hv 27.11–15 above.
* Krishna is in Vāranāvata because the Pāndavas and their mother Kuntī have seemingly perished in a fire there. See Mbh 1.130–37.
* Akrūra’s only mentioned sister is Sundarā (Hv 24.10; 28.40), who marries Krishna’s son Sāmba (Hv 28.41). So perhaps Krishna accepts Sundarā for his son (as Arjuna accepts Uttarā for his, Mbh 4.66.27–29).
† This is presumably the fury that Krishna felt when he found out that Satrājit had been murdered.
* This and many of the other stories about Vishnu that Janamejaya alludes to in this speech are narrated by Vaishampāyana in the following chapters.
† The triple set consists of propriety (dharma), prosperity (artha), and pleasure (kāma). The three paths are to a better, similar, or worse rebirth, and depend upon one’s prioritisation of propriety, prosperity, or pleasure.
* The performance of rituals is particularly associated with the dvāpara age, the third of the four ages. See Mbh 12.224.27.
* Here Vishnu is the immortal soul that is connected with the psychophysical individual. The sānkhya philosophy analyses the latter into various aspects (the senses and so on).
† The four estates are student, householder, hermit, and mendicant.
‡ In ancient Indian medical theory, chyle, blood, flesh, fat, bone, marrow, and semen are the seven basic constituents of the human body.
* Reproduction is said to occur through the interaction of a man’s semen and a woman’s (menstrual) blood. These are linked, respectively, with soma (moist, cool, lunar) and fire (dry, hot, solar), which function in various Indian taxonomies as the two basic poles making up a totality. At Mbh 12.328.52–329.5, soma and fire are said to have originated from Brahmā’s eyes.
† Here Janamejaya refers to the science of the three humours (phlegm, wind, and bile).
‡ The fire god is responsible for the digestive process.
* For longer versions of the Madhu and Kaitabha story, see Mbh 3.184; 12.335; and Hv 42.14–33 below.
† For Vishnu as a boar, see also Mbh 12.202.
* Varuna, Indra, Yama, and Kubera are the four world-guardians, one for each point of the compass (compare Hv 8.42 for Yama).
† According to Hv 3.58–80, Hiranyakashipu is a Daitya (descendant of Diti) but not a Dānava (descendant of Danu). But the two terms are used interchangeably.
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