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Satyavati was the queen of the Kuru king, Shantanu of Hastinapur and the great-grandmother of the Pandava and Kaurava princes. She is also the mother of the seer Vyasa, author of the epic. Her story appears in the Mahabharata, the Harivamsa and the Devi Bhagavata Purana.
Shantanu was a Kuru king of Hastinapura in the epic Mahabharata. He was a descendant of the Bharata race, of the Lunar dynasty and great-grandfather of the Pandavas and the Kauravas. He was the youngest son of King Pratipa of Hastinapura and had been born in the latter's old age. The eldest son Devapi had leprosy and gave up his inheritance to become a hermit. The middle son Bahlika abandoned his paternal kingdom and started living with his maternal uncle in Balkh and inherited his kingdom. Shantanu thus became the king of Hastinapura kingdom.
Kamadhenu, also known as Surabhi, is a divine bovine-goddess described in Hinduism as Gou Mata, the mother of all cows. She is a miraculous "cow of plenty" who provides her owner whatever he desires and is often portrayed as the mother of other cattle. In iconography, she is generally depicted as a white cow with a female head and breasts, the wings of a bird, and the tail of a peafowl or as a white cow containing various deities within her body. All cows are venerated in Hinduism as the earthly embodiment of the Kamadhenu. As such, Kamadhenu is not worshipped independently as a goddess, and temples are not dedicated to her honor alone; rather, she is honored by the veneration of cows in general throughout the observant Hindu population.
Bhishma, also known as Pitamaha, Gangaputra and Devavrata, was a statesman of Kuru Kingdom and one of the most powerful warriors in the Hindu epic Mahabharata. He was the eighth and only surviving son of the Kuru King Shantanu and the river goddess Ganga. He was related to both the Pandavas and the Kauravas through his half-brother, Vichitravirya.
In the Hindu epic Mahabharata, Pandu was a king of Kuru Kingdom. He is regarded as the "father" of the five Pandava brothers, though they were actually gifted by different gods due to his inability of having children following Maharisi Kindam's curse.
Dhritarashtra was a Kuru king who featured heavily in the Hindu epic Mahabharata as the interim King of the Kuru Kingdom with its capital at Hastinapur. He was born to Vichitravirya's first wife Ambika. Dhritarashtra was born blind. He fathered one hundred sons and one daughter, Dushala, by his wife, Gandhari and a son, Yuyutsu, by his wife's maid. These children, including the eldest son Duryodhana, but not including Yuyutsu and Dushala, came to be known as the Kauravas. Gandhari, his wife, sacrificed her eyesight, as he was blind, by blindfolding herself; hence, she could not see.
Dushyanta is a king in classical Indian literature. He was the husband of Shakuntala and the father of the Emperor Bharata. He appears in the Mahabharata and in Kalidasa's play The Recognition of Sakuntala. His name is also transliterated as Dusyanta or Dushyant, and means "Destroyer of the Evil" in Sanskrit.
According to Hinduism, Yayāti was a Chandravanshi king. He was one of the ancestors of Pandavas and Yaduvanshis. He was the son of King Nahusha and his wife Ashokasundari, daughter of Shiva and Parvati, however, early sources state that Virajas, daughter of the Pitris, was the mother of Yayati. He had five brothers: Yati, Samyati, Ayati, Viyati and Kriti. Yayāti had conquered the whole world and was the Chakravartin Samrat. He married Devayani and took Sharmishtha, daughter of king Vrishparva and maid of Devayani to his empire. Devayani was the daughter of Shukracharya, the priest of the Asuras. Later he copulates with Sharmistha. After hearing of his relationship with Sharmishtha, Devayani complains to her father Shukracharya, who in turn curses Yayāti to old age in the prime of life, but later allows him to exchange it with his son, Puru. His story finds mention in the Mahabharata-Adi Parva, in the Bhagavata Purana & also in the Matsya Purana.
The Panchala kingdom was one of the historical Mahajanapadas of ancient India. It was annexed into the Nanda Empire during the reign of Mahapadma Nanda. Ahichchhatra was capital of northern Panchala and Kampilya was capital of southern Panchala.
Kosala Proper or simply Kosala is the kingdom of the celebrated personality of Treta Yuga, Raghava Rama. Ayodhya was its capital, presently in Ayodhya district, Uttar Pradesh. Rama's sons Lava and Kusha inherited parts of this kingdom. Lava ruled from the city called Ayodhya and Kusa from the city called Kushavati. A colony of Kosala kings existed in Madhya Pradesh. It was called Dakshina Kosala. Rama's mother Kausalya was from this kingdom. King Rama extended his influence up to the island-kingdom of Lanka situated in the southern ocean. He had friendly relations with the southern kingdom of forest dwellers (Vanaras) called Kishkindha.
Sauvīra was an ancient kingdom of the lower Indus Valley mentioned in the Late Vedic and early Buddhist literature and the Hindu epic Mahabharata. It is often mentioned alongside the Sindhu Kingdom. Its capital city was Roruka, identified with present-day Aror/Rohri in Sindh, mentioned in the Buddhist literature as a major trading center. According to the Mahabharata, Jayadratha was the king of the Sindhus, Sauviras and Sivis, having conquered Sauvira and Sivi, two kingdoms close to the Sindhu kingdom. Jayadratha was an ally of Duryodhana and the husband of Duryodhana's sister Dussala. The kingdom of Sauvira is also stated to be close to the Dwaraka and Anarta kingdoms.
Kalinga is a tribe described in the legendary Indian text Mahabharata. They were a warrior clan who settled in and around the historical Kalinga region, present-day Odisha, west Bengal, Bangladesh and northern parts of Andhra Pradesh.
Keralas or Udra Keralas are a dynasty mentioned in Sanskrit epics of ancient India. In the Mahabharata, the Keralas rule over a kingdom which took part in the Kurukshetra War on the side of the Pandavas. According to the Puranas, the navigators and survivors of the Yadavas of Dwaraka also settled in Kerala later, resulting in the cult of Krishna worship. And some remnants of the Sinhalas of Sri Lanka and of the Naga culture are also found here.
In the Mahabharata the Naga Kingdom is the territory of a hardy and warlike tribe called Nagas. They were also considered one of the supernatural races like the Kinnaras.
Chitrāngadā, in the Hindu epic Mahābhārata, was the warrior princess of Manipura and the only heir of king Chitravahana. She was one of Arjuna's 4 wives. She had a son named Babhruvahana with him. Story of Chitrangada is adapted by Indian writer, Rabindranath Tagore in his play, Chitra.
In Hindu mythology, Nahusha was a king of the Aila dynasty and the 3,698,256th Indra (position). He was the son of Āyu, the eldest son of Pururavas, and Prabha, the daughter of Svarbhānu. Nahusha is also mentioned often in the Rigveda, starting in Mandala 1. Nahusha reigned from Pratishthana. He married Viraja, the daughter of the Pitrs. They had six or seven sons, according to different Puranas. His eldest son Yati became a muni (ascetic). He was succeeded by his second son Yayati. In another and more popular variation of his story, he is said to have married Ashokasundari, the goddess who the daughter of Shiva and Parvati and she is said to have given birth to Yayati and a hundred daughters of Nahusha.
Mahishmati who claimed to be Yadav was an ancient kingdom in present-day central India. It was located in present-day Maheshwar in Madhya Pradesh, on the banks of Narmada River.
In the Hindu epic Mahabharata, Amba is the eldest daughter of Kashya, the king of Kashi and the sister of Ambika and Ambalika. Amba was abducted by Kuru prince Bhishma and holds him responsible for her misfortune. Her sole goal in life became his destruction, to fulfill which she was reborn as Shikhandini, the daughter of king Drupada and the sister of the epic's female protagonist Draupadi.
According to legend, Sarpa Satra or Snake sacrifice was a yagna performed by Emperor Janamejaya of the Kuru empire who had ascended to the throne of Hastinapura upon the death of his father Parikshit. The legend states that Parikshit, the lone descendant of the House of Pandu, son of Abhimanyu and grand son of Arjuna of the Mahabharata fame, had died of snakebite. He had been cursed by a sage to die so, the curse having been consummated by the serpent-chieftain Takshaka. Janamejaya bore a deep grudge against the serpents for this act, and thus decided to wipe them out altogether. He attempted this by performing a great Sarpa Satra – a sacrifice that would destroy all living serpents. At that time, a learned sage named Astika, a boy in age, came and intervened to stop the yagna; Astika's mother manasa was a Naga and father was Jaratkaru a saintly Brahmin. Janamejaya had to listen to the words of the learned Astika and set Takshaka free. He also stopped the massacre of the snakes (Nagas) and ended all the enmity with them. From then onward the snakes (Nagas) and Kurus lived in peace.
References
- Kisari Mohan Ganguli, The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa Translated into English Prose, 1883–1896.
