Solar dynasty

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Suryavansh Dynasty
Location of Kingdom of Kosala
StatusEmpire
CapitalAyodhya
ReligionHinduism
GovernmentMonarchy
File:Wat phra keaw ramayana fresco.jpg
The Ramayana was adopted by several Asian cultures. This Thai artwork shows the battle of Rama and Ravana.

According to Puranic literature, Suryavansha or the Solar dynasty or the Ikshvaku dynasty is an ancient Hindu dynasty of India. It is the house of some of the greatest kings and rulers of India. These individuals include Lord Rama and Buddha. The Hindu sun god also known as Vivasvan is considered the primogenitor of Suryavansh and his son Vaivasvata Manu is the progenitor of humanity according to the Hindu texts. However, it was the magnanimous king Ikshvaku of the ancient kingdom of Kosala who became the first chakravarti or the universal ruler when he conquered far distant lands of Āryāvarta and established a formidable empire. Thus, the dynasty derived his name and was also called Ikshvaku dynasty.[1] Lord Rama belonged to the Suryavansha or Ikshvaku dynasty.[2] Twenty-two out of the twenty-four Jain Tirthankara belonged to this dynasty.[3] According to the Buddhist texts, Prince Siddhartha belonged to this dynasty. The dynasty is also known as Raghuvansha or Raghu-kula because of King Raghu who was the great grandson of Ikshavaku and great grandfather of Lord Rama.

The prominent kings and emperors belonging to this royal house are Mandhatri, Muchukunda, Ambarisha, Dilīpa, Raghu, Aja, Dasharatha, Rama, Bahubali, Harishchandra, Dilīpa, Sagara,[4] and Pasenadi. Although, both the Hindu Puranas and the Buddhist texts include Shuddodhana, Gautama Buddha and Rahula in their accounts of the Ikshvaku dynasty, but according to the Buddhist texts, Mahasammata, an ancestor of Ikshvaku was the founder of this dynasty,[5] who was elected by the people as the first king of the present era. According to the Puranas, supreme preceptor of the Ikshvaku dynasty was sage Vashishta.

Origins

The Solar dynasty or the Ikshvaku dynasty as it is popularly called is named after its progenitor Ikshvaku. According to ancient Hindu scriptures, Ikshvaku was the son of Vaivasvata Manu (also called as Shraddhadeva Manu), the king of the Dravida kingdom during the epoch of the Matsya avatar of Vishnu.[6][7] Vaivasvata Manu married Shraddha and had ten sons, the oldest of whom was Ikshvaku, the progenitor of the Solar dynasty, and a daughter Ila who is considered the progenitor of the Lunar dynasty.[7].

The ancient Hindu scripture, Matsya Purana written in Sanskrit, begins with Manu practising tapas in mount Malaya in south India while the Bhagavatha Purana, again a Sanskrit scripture mentions Manu, as the lord of Dravida.[8]. According to Hindu scriptures like Shatapatha Brahmana, Manu was warned of an impending flood by a fish (Matsya avatar of Vishnu as per Matsya Purana) that he once saved. So he built a big boat and when the flood came, he got into the boat and the fish helped pull his boat to the northern mountain and was thus saved. Manu then had offspring who spawned the Solar and Lunar dynasties.[9]

Rigveda

  • The word Ikṣvāku is found only once in the whole of the Rigveda, in X.60.4 as an epithet of the Sun. It simply means "the Sun".
  • However, the Ikṣvāku are referred to in the Rigveda by another name: as the Tṛkṣi: this word is found twice in the Rigveda: VI.46.8; VIII.22.7.
  • a) In the second reference, VIII.22.7, the word is used as an epithet of a king called Trāsadasyava, "the son of Trasadasyu". The actual name of this king, "the son of Trasadasyu", is not given in the hymn, but most Indologists assume his name to be Tṛkṣi, on account of the phrase "Tṛkṣim Trāsadasyavam" (mis)translated as "Trikṣi, the son of Trasadasyu". However, it should actually be translated as "the Trikṣi, the son of Trasadasyu", meaning "the son of Trasadasyu, of the Trikṣi (tribe)". The other earlier reference makes it clear that the word is not the name of a person but of a tribe:
  • b) The first reference, VI.46.8, is one of those directional references which names tribes as references of direction. The two verses VI.46.7-8 are as follows:

"All the manly powers of the Nahuṣa Tribes, all the Glory of the Five Tribes, bring it together, O Indra! All the Strength with Trikṣi, with Druhyu, and with Pūru, bestow it all on us, O Indra, that we may conquer all our enemies in battle".

Very clearly, tribes are being referred to, not individuals. The translators clearly translate as "the Druhyu folk/tribes/people" and "the Pūru folk/tribes/people" in two of the three cases, but simply "Trikṣi" in the third, and assume it to be the name of a person! Obviously, it is the name of a tribe! The two verses are clear: the first verse refers to "Nahuṣa Tribes" and "Five Tribes" in the sense of "All the Tribes". The second specifically names together the easternmost tribes, the Trikṣi in the far east, the westernmost tribes, the Druhyu in the far northwest, and the central tribes, the Pūru, in the home areas, to again indicate "All the Tribes". And they ask Indra to give all the strength and power of all these tribes to Us, the Bharatas. Therefore also, the word in VIII.22.7 means the Trikṣi, and not Trikṣi.

  • The first of these, Mandhāta is clearly a distant ancestral king in this line, since he is not referred to in any contemporary sense: in the first reference, I.112.13, he is included in a long list of beneficiaries of the grace of the Aśvins. In the next two (both by one composer), he is clearly an old ancestral figure: VIII.40.12 specifically refers to him as an ancestor (pitṛ). The composer is Nābhāka Kāṇva: incidentally, in the Ikṣvāku dynastic lists in both the Puranas and Epics, Nābhāga is the name of one of the far descendants of Mandhātā.
  • The Puranic accounts of the Ikṣvāku dynasty associate all the early kings with the east, but in the case of Mandhātā, they relate his movement westwards in support of his Pūru kinsmen who were under assault from the Druhyus to their west in a pre-Rigvedic period. The Druhyus had attacked all the people to their east and all the eastern people combined against them to drive them out. Mandhātā moved out as far as the Punjab and drove the Druhyus out from the Punjab into the northwest. Pargiter describes it as follows: "The Druhyus occupied the Punjab, and Mandhātṛ of Ayodhya had a long war with the Druhyu king Aruddha or Aṅgāra and killed him" (PARGITER 1962:167). Later, more in detail, he tells us that Mandhātā pushed past "the prostrate Paurava realm, and pushing beyond them westwards, he had a long contest with and conquered the Druhyu king who appears to have been then on the confines of the Panjab, so that the next Druhyu king Gandhāra retired to the northwest and gave his name to the Gandhāra country" (PARGITER 1962:262).

[1] [archive]

In Bhagavatha Purana

Ikshvaku and his ancestor Manu are mentioned in the Bhagavata Purana (Canto 9, Chapter 1),

<poem style="font-style:italic;text-align:left" lang="">

yo ’sau satyavrato nāma rājarṣir draviḍeśvaraḥ jñānaṁ yo ’tīta-kalpānte lebhe puruṣa-sevayā

sa vai vivasvataḥ putro manur āsīd iti śrutam tvattas tasya sutāḥ proktā ikṣvāku-pramukhā nṛpāḥ </poem>

<poem>

he who was known as Satyavrata the saintly king of dravida desa one who received spiritual knowledge at the end of period of last Manu by rendering service to the Supreme

became known as Vaivasvata Manu, the son of Vivasvan in the period of next manu I have already heard from you that his sons were many kings, headed by Iksvaku </poem>

In Buddhism

The Buddhist text, Buddhavamsa and Mahavamsa (II, 1-24) traces the origin of the Shakyas to king Okkaka (Pali equivalent to Sanskrit Ikshvaku) and gives their genealogy from Mahasammata, an ancestor of Okkaka. This list comprises the names of a number of prominent kings of the Ikshvaku dynasty, namely, Mandhata and Sagara.[10] The genealogy according to the Mahavamsa is as follows:[11][12]

  1. Okkāka[13]
  2. Okkāmukha
  3. Sivisamjaya
  4. Sihassara
  5. Jayasena
  6. Sihahanu
  7. Suddhodana
  8. Gautama Buddha
  9. Rāhula

In Jainism

The Ikshvaku dynasty has a significant place in Jainism, as twenty-two Tirthankaras were born in this dynasty.[14]

See also

References

Citations

  1. ↑ Kumari, Bramha (22 August 2019). Grow Rich while Walking into the Golden Aged World [archive]. GBK Publications. Retrieved 8 October 2019.
  2. ↑ Zimmer 1952, p. 218.
  3. ↑ Zimmer 1952, p. 220.
  4. ↑ Ikshaku tribe [archive] The Mahabharata translated by Kisari Mohan Ganguli (1883 -1896), Book 3: Vana Parva: Tirtha-yatra Parva: Section CVI, p. 228 'There was born in the family of the Ikshavaku, a ruler of the earth named Sagara, endued with beauty, and strength...".
  5. ↑ Malalasekera, G. P. (2007) [1937]. Dictionary of Pāli Proper Names: A-Dh [archive]. Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass. pp. 461–2. ISBN 978-81-208-3021-9.
  6. ↑ Vashisht Vaid. The Codified Mysteries [archive]. Lulu.com, 2012.
  7. ↑ 7.0 7.1 Rhonda Burnette-Bletsch, Jon Morgan. Noah as Antihero: Darren Aronofsky’s Cinematic Deluge [archive]. Rhonda Burnette-Bletsch, Jon Morgan. p. 45.
  8. ↑ Alan Dundes (ed.). The Flood Myth [archive]. University of California Press, 1988. p. 296.
  9. ↑ John Keay. India: A History [archive]. HarperCollins UK, 2013. p. 2.
  10. ↑ Law, B.C. (1973). Tribes in Ancient India, Bhandarkar Oriental Series No.4, Poona: Bhandarkar Oriental Research Institute, p.246
  11. ↑ Misra, V.S. (2007). Ancient Indian Dynasties, Mumbai: Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan, ISBN 81-7276-413-8, p.286
  12. ↑ Geiger, Wilhelm (tr.) (1912). "Mahavamsa, Chapter II" [archive]. Ceylon Government Information Dept., Colombo (in lakdvia.org website). Retrieved 2009-10-26.
  13. ↑ "Okkāka" [archive]. Palikanon. Retrieved 2019-08-13.
  14. ↑ Jain 1991, p. 2.
  15. ↑ Jain 1991, p. 5.
  16. ↑ Shah 2004, p. 15.
  17. ↑ Shah, Chandraprakash, Shri Shantinatha, 16th Tirthankara [archive]
  18. ↑ Jain 1991, p. 161.

Sources

Preceded by
Kulakara (in Jainism)
 Ikshvaku Dynasty Succeeded by


Template:Suryavansha

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