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Viśvāmitra

Viśvāmitra

c. 1400 BCE · Kannauj

Legendary Vedic seer with no historical dates. The conventional ~1400 BCE placement ties him to the Rigvedic family books, the third maṇḍala being traditionally ascribed to his lineage. The figure is mythic and the year is a textual-stratum convention, not established history.

Vishvamitra is a legendary seer credited in tradition with the third book (Mandala 3) of the Rigveda, including the famed Gāyatrī mantra (RV 3.62.10). Stories tell of his transformation from a king of Kanyakubja (traditionally identified with Kannauj) into a brahmarṣi through extreme austerity, and of his long rivalry with the seer Vasishtha. He is a figure of scripture and legend rather than documented history.

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Stop 1 of 1Traditional Association

Kannauj

We know they were here, but the specifics of what they did at this stop aren’t recorded yet in our corpus.

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The world in their lifetime

Thinkers and teachers of other traditions whose lives overlapped with Viśvāmitra’s — a glimpse of the wider world they lived in. Drawn purely from recorded birth and death years.

Works

No works attributed in the corpus yet.