VISWAXITRA, vls-wiimi-tra, personage prominent in the legendary history of India; a descendant of King Purtiravas, who was an an cestor of Kusiha. According to several accounts, Viswamitra was maternal uncle of Jamadagni. He had 100 sons, 50 of whom were, for an offense that they :committed, degraded by him to be. conse outcasts, and the proguetors of the Andhras, Pundras, Sabaras, Pulindas, Mfit ibas and other frontier tribes, which in the Vedas are called Dasytts, or robbers
course to his magical weapons, hut he was de feated by those of Vasishtha; and in his humili ation he exclaimed: 'Contemptible is the might of a Kshattriya; a Brahman's might alone is might;) and to attain the rank of a Brahman he immediately resolved to practise the utmost austerities. Accordingly he went to the south, and performed severe penance for 1,000 years. At the end of this period, the god Brahman ap peared, and announced to him that he had be come a Riijarshi, or royal Rishi. Not satisfied with this degree of holiness, Viswimitra con tinued his austerities, and at the end of another 1,030 years the god Brahman conferred on him the dignity of a Rishi. Not yet satisfied, he went on practising still fiercer austerities, though interrupted by the allurements or a heavenly nymph whom the gods sent to him for that purpose: thus he attained the rank of a Maharshi, or great Rishi. After another 2,000 years of still more rigorous penance (again interrupted by the gods, as before), the gods, headed by Brahman, came to acicnowledge that he had now become a Brahmarshi, or Brahmanic Rishi; and Vasishtha himself was compelled to acquiesce in the result. For other legends relating to this contest, consult Muir's (Origi nal Sanscrit Texts' (Vol. I, London 1858).