The Journal of the Benares Hindu University

4 rout: kor: *mirk rwilitlevilmmftw I nu 4 8 18.190 JOURNAL OF THE BENARES HINDU UNIVERSITY The ItihAsa-Puri:tip literature of the Vedic period referred to by the Atharvaveda and the §atapatha Brdhmana must obviously have consisted of the genealogies of the earlier and contemporary royal houses and stories about the exploits and achievements of the celebrities among them If the Puräkias co [...] The strongest evidence however in favour of the view that the pre-Bharata War dynasties mentioned in the Puranas flourished before the tune of the Kauravas and Panclavas is the circumstance that the Pauranic data about many of the royal houses kings and sages is confined by the Vedic literature to a surprising extent. [...] Owing to the presence of the traditional holy rivers like the Sarasvati the Drkiadvati the Ganga and the Yamunii the Kurupaiicala country remained the centre of the Aryan religion and culture for several centuries even when the Aryans had penetrated to Oudh Central India and northern Deccan. [...] The astronomical tradition places the beginning of the Kaliyuga in 3101 B. O. In the Mahabhärata it is stated in different places that the Kaliyuga would begin either at the time of the war or at the time of the accession of Yudhisthira or after the death of gri Krsna. [...] The data supplied by the Vaniiávali lists of teachers in the Vedic literature and the information about the number of kings that flourished after the Bharata War and before the rise of the giSunaga dynasty give us further clues to determine the date of the war.