Bharata-The Ruler Of Bharatvarsha
March 18, 2008 by Arun Pal Singh
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Bharata was the son of King Dushyanta and Shakuntala and thus a descendant of the Lunar Dynasty of the Kshatriya caste. He was originally named Sarvadamana which was later changed to Bharata. Bharata was a legendary king. He was the first to conquer all of Greater India, uniting it into a single entity which was named after him as Bharatavar?ha.
Bharata’s empire covered all of the Indian subcontinent, Bactria, Uzbekistan, Afghanistan, Tajikistan, Kyrgistan, Turkmenistan, and Persia.
Story of Bharata
Apsaras Menaka had come at the behest of the King of the Gods, Indra, to distract the great sage Vishvamitra from his deep meditations. She succeeded, and bore a child by him.
Vishwamitra, angered by the loss of the virtue gained through his many hard years of strict ascetism, distanced himself from the child and mother to return to his work. Realizing that she could not leave the child with him, and having to return to the heavenly realms, Menaka left the newborn Shakuntala on the banks of the Malini River on the peaks of the Himalayas.
Shakuntala was found by the Rishi Kanva surrounded and protected by birds, and so she was named Shakuntala.
Sakanthula was brought up by rishi Kanva in his ashram.King Dushyanta encountered Shakuntala while travelling through the forest with his army.
Pursuing a male deer wounded by his arrow into the ashram, he saw Shakuntala nursing the deer, her pet, and fell in love with her. He profusely begged her forgiveness for harming the deer and spent some time at the ashram. They fell in love and Dushyanta married Shakuntala there in the ashram. Dushyanta left ashram after some time due to unrest in the capital city.
Sakunthala gave birth to a child, named as Saravadamana. Sarvadamana grew to be a strong child and made a sport of opening the mouths of tigers and lions and counting their teeth!
Sakunthala reached Dushyanta’s palace with her son but her husband did not recognize her, nor recollected anything about her.
Dushyanta’s failure to recognise Shakuntala is in fact a ploy to have his subjects accept her as his true wife, since he had feared rumors might otherwise have arisen as to the propriety of the marriage. After a long course of arguments made by Sakunthala, the king accepted her as his wife. Their child was renamed Bharata.
Young Bharata conquered and ruled the entire continent of India, from sea to Himalaya. His empire was named Bharatavarsha, the land of Bharata.
Equal in valor to Indra, Bharata was a virtuous king.
His wife Sunandadevi was chaste and devoted. They had no children. None of the children born to them had survived. They adopted Bharadwaja on advice of Marudgana Gods.
At the proper age, Bharadwaja was married. His wife was Susheela, a righteous woman, her character matching her beauty – a wife suited to Bharadwaja.
Bharata had adopted Bharadwaja. Bharata had no other children. There fore, Bharadwaja could have become the emperor. But Bharadwaja had no love for the kingdom. He praised and invoked Agni. “O Lord Agni, please get rid of Emperor Bharata’s worry and grant him what he wants,” he said.
The prayer bore fruit. In due cot Bharata got a son named Bhimanyu. Bharata died around that time Bharadwaja stayed in the palace till Bhimanyu came of age, guided him and crowned him.
It is in Bharata’s dynasty that, later, righteous men like the Pandavas were born.
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Tags: Bharata, Bharatvarsha, Dushyant, great India, Mahabharata, Shakuntla
[...] early people, however, called their country ‘Bharata Varsha’, that is, the country of Bharata and his progeny, a famous king. Bharata Varsha was supposed to be a part of an island continent [...]