The Doubt

We find records of Vashishtha in Ramayana, an epic story on the life of prince Rama, as being the Kula Guru (Guru of the lineage) of the solar dynasty (also called Ishwaku dynasty).

The accepted birth date of Rama is January 10, 5114 BCE. Vashishtha taught Rama and Rama regarded Vashishtha as his Guru.

We find records of Vyasa, the son of Parasara, in Mahabharata. Mahabharata is an epic story on the battle between the cousins of the lunar dynasty and life record of Krishna. Vyasa is mentioned in the epic as being the father of Pandu, Dhritarashtra and Vidura. Vyasa was a contemporary of Krishna and there are numerous encounters between the two and Krishna bowing down to Vysasa as an acknowledgement of his learning and spiritual powers. The accepted birth date of Krishna is July 21, 3228 BCE. There is however, some controversy on the month being June or July and the year being either 3228 BCE or 3227 BCE. However, that question is not of importance here.

If we were to believe the story of lineage of Parasara as the one stated above, we would see a span of 4 generations in almost 2000 years. This somehow doesn’t seem correct based on scientific theories of life expectancies. Even if humans lived much longer (100-120 years) in ancient times, this span of time does not make much sense.

There is another question on the accepted lineage of Parasara.

Vishwamitra and Vashistha were contemporary sages. There are numerous stories about the encounters between Viswamitra and Vashistha in the puranas and the itihas (Ramayan and Mahabharata). The great lunar dynasty king Dushyanta married Shakuntala, the daughter of sage Vishwamitra and the celestial nymph Menaka. The linage of Dushyanta is given below:

• Bharata, son of Dushyanta and Shakuntala
• Bhumanyu
• Vrihatkshatra
• Suhotra
• Hasti
• Ajmeedh
• Riksha
• Sanwaran
• Kuru, founder of the city of Kurukshetra.
• Abhishyantu
• Parikshit
• Janmejaya
• Surath
• Vidurath
• Riksh II
• Bhimsen
• Prateep
• Shantanu married firstly Ganga and secondly Satyavati.

Thus we see that, in round about the same time span, we can account for eighteen generations from the time of Vishwamitra to that of Shantanu and only four generations from Vashistha to Vyasa!

This does indicate that something is not correct in the lineage of the "historical" Parasara.

This is the third in a series of four articles. View the first and the second intallments.

Souvik Dutta is the Guru of the Ancient Indian Astrology Classes. He holds regular classes and consultations in various institutes in and around Chicago.

www.ancientindianastrologyclasses.com
www.aiaclasses.blogspot.com
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