VISVAMITRA, a Kshatriya prince of the Lunar dynasty, who claimed the right to perform a great public sacrifice, and established his claim. He was opposed by Vasishta, who claimed that to be a province of the Brahmans only. Visvamitra was the son of Gadhi or Gathin (of the race of Kausika), king of Gadhipura, and contemporary of Umbar eesha, king of Ayodhya or Oudh, the fortieth prince from Ikshwaku, consequently about two hundred years anterior to Rama, and probably about one thousand four hundred years before Christ. He is mentioned in the Rig Veda, Ramayana, and Mahabharata. He is author of one of the Smriti and of a book in praise of Jwala-Mukhi. He taught that the will and decrees of God are irre sistible. There are many legends about him, but all of them relate to the success of his efforts to repress the ambitious strivings of the Brahmans, led by Vasishta. According to the Ramayana, he was the fourth from Prajapati, but the Bhaga vat makes him the fifteenth from Brahma. They agree in calling him the son of Gadhi, who, according to the first, was the son of Kusan abha, and, according to the second, the son of Kusamba. Visvamitra was sovereign Of Kanoui,
and, according to the legend, engaged in war with the sacre Vasishta for the possession of Surabhi, the abestowing cow. In this contest the cow produced all sorts of forces, pdrticularly M'hlecha, or Barbarians, by whose aid Vasishta overcame his adversary. There mn be little doubt that this legend is an allegorical account of a real trans action, and that by the cow we are to understand India, or the most valuable portion of it, possibly the valley of the Ganges, for the sovereignty of which either two princes or two tribes, the Brah mans and Kshatriyas, contended. One of the parties, calling to their aid the aborigines, the Persians, and not impossibly the Greeks, triumphed by their means. There are other obscure legends. —Cale. Rev.; liamayana, i. sect. 41-53 ; bharata, Adi Pari;a; Bhagavat, ix. 15 ; TVard, iv. p. 42.