Divodasa- a tribal king

                                                             Divodasa- a tribal king

Divodasa ("heaven's servant") was a tribal king in the Rigveda. He was celebrated for his liberality and protected by Indra and the Ashvin’s in the Rigveda, RV 1.112.14; 1.116.18). He was the son of Vadhryashva RV 6.61.5.

Some sources say that Divodasa was king Bhimaratha’s son. He is the father of the famous king Sudas (RV 7.18.28). His name is mentioned in the Battle of the Ten Kings in which he had participated. Pijavana is the other name of Divodasa according to Rigveda. His son, Pratardana, is mentioned in the Kaushitaki Upanishad. Divodasa had another son called Sudas who became very famous.

Divodasa was invited in the Aswamedha Sacrifice performed by King Dasharatha of Ayodhya. He was the younger brother of Queen Sumitra and was a Brother-in-law of Dasharatha. He was also the son of King Bhimaratha and was a grandson of Lord Dhanvantari. It is also the name of a king of Kashi surnamed Dhanvantari as per the hymn (RV 10.179.2), the founder of the Indian school of medicine called Ayurveda.

A story of Divodasa goes that there was a Vedic or Aryan renovation of India after the Great Flood. This was at a much earlier period of the hymns. Here, the Aryans overthrew a related but spiritually fallen culture, which had troubled them and which at least some of them had fled from. The Vedic Aryans did not fight with unfamiliar peoples but with the members of their own culture who failed to maintain the spiritual law of the land.

Divodasa gave golden treasures to the Rsi Garga. Rigveda refers to niSkagrIva which is a golden ornament on the neck and necklaces of gold reaching down to the chest. Gold was smelted from the ores which evoke the Indian alchemical tradition enshrined in the soma rasa, later elaborated as the science of alchemy: rasa-vada. Gold was won from the riverbeds: Sindhu is called the hiraNmayI; Sarasvati is called hiraNyavartanI.

Ayurveda is described as science of life, and it was recalled by Brahma as mentioned in Ayurvedic treatises. Brahma transformed his noble knowledge to Prajapati Daksha. Later Daksha passed his legacy to Ashwin’s and Indra received knowledge from Ashwin’s. As per Sushruta opinion, Indra taught Ayurveda to Dhanwantari, the surgeon of gods represented as king Divodasa of Banaras (Kashiraja). Divodasa then transmitted medical knowledge with special reference to surgery to the wise men like Sushruta and others who approached him as pupils, out of sympathy for the suffering humanity and in order to prolong their own life. Patanjali, is one falling into folded hands. The name comes from a legend about his birth which says that Seṣa, the divine serpent-king, incarnated as a snakelet and fell into the folded hands (Anjali Mudra) of a Brahmin. Another explanation describes the word as (He for whom the folded hands of people are falling is Patanjali). The compound name Patan jali: "Patan" is 'bank' and "Jal" is 'water', in the Sindhi language of the Indus Valley Civilization.

 

References:

1.            Raj Kumar (18 August 2003). Know The Vedas at A Glance. New Delhi: Pustak Mahal. p. 98. ISBN 978-81-223-0848-8. Retrieved 13 September 2017.

2.K. C. Singhal; Roshan Gupta (2003). The Ancient History of India, Vedic Period: A New Interpretation. New Delhi: Atlantic Publishers & Dist. p. 58. ISBN 978-81-269-0286-6.

3.            M. C. Joshi (1986). Princes and polity in ancient India. Jodhpur: Kusumanjali Prakashan. p. 53.

4.Singh, Rana P.B.; Pravin S. Rana (2002). Banaras Region: A Spiritual and Cultural Guide. Varanasi: Indica Books. p. 31. ISBN 81-86569-24-3.

 

King Sudas

King Sudas, the son of Divodasa was an Indo-Aryan tribal king of the Bharatas, during the main or middle Rigvedic period (c. 14th century BCE).^[1] He led his tribe to victory in the Battle of the Ten Kings near the Paruṣṇi (modern Ravi River) in Punjab,^[2] defeating an alliance of the powerful Puru tribe with other tribes, for which he was praised by his purohita Vashistha in a hymn of the Rigveda. His victory established the dominance and superiority of the Bharata clan, allowing them to move eastwards and settle in Kurukshetra, paving the way for the emergence of the Kuru "super-tribe" or tribal union, which dominated northern India in the subsequent period.^[3]

Sudas is mentioned in Rigveda as the chief of Bharatas who conquered the ten-kings coalition and groupings.^[2] It is further mentioned that the king replaced Vashistha with Visvamitra as his priest, thereby creating a rivalry between the two. The ten-kings, viz. Puru, Yadu, Turvasa, Adu, Druhyu, Alina, Paktha, Bhalanas, Siva and Vishanin, then revolted against king Sudas but were defeated by him. He also fought Ajas, Sigrus and Yakshus soon after.^[4]

[1]. Witzel, Michael (2000). "The Languages of Harappa". In Kenoyer, J. Proceedings of the conference on the Indus civilization.

[2]. Mookherji 1988, p. 1.

[3]. Witzel, Michael (1995), "Early Sanskritization: Origin and Development of the Kuru state", EJVS vol. 1 no. 4 (1995)

[4]. Sen 1999, p. 41.