CHAPTER I
(AN ACCOUNT OF JANAMEJAYA'S FAMILY)
Shounaka said:—O son of Lomaharshana, who are the sons of Janamejaya? And by whom the family of Pandavas was founded? I have been stricken with curiosity to hear this history. I wish therefore to learn every detail about it as you have said (1-2).
Souti said:—Parikshit's son Janamejaya begat on his wife Kāshyā two sons, the king Chandrāpida and Suryāpida who was conversant with the knowledge of emancipation. By performing works befitting the Kshatriyas, the hundred sons of Chandrāpida, who were all clever archers, acquired celebrity on earth under the appellation of Janamejayas (3–4). Of them the eldest Satyakarana of long arms, the performer of many sacrifices accompanied with profuse gifts, was installed on the throne of Hastināpur. Satyakarna's son the virtuous and powerful Swetakarna had no issue and he therefore entered into woods with his spouse (5–6). The beautiful Yadu princess Mālini, of fair eye-brows, conceived through the forest-ranging Swetakarna. Just in the beginning of this conception the patriarch Swetakarna entered like his fore-fathers into woods for good (7-8). Beholding her husband retire into forest, Mālini, who was quick with a child, followed him, and on the way gave birth to a son having eyes like lotus petals. As Draupadi followed her husbands in the days of yore so the chaste and noble Mālini followed her consort leaving the new-born baby behind. While that tender baby, divorced from his mother, was crying in the mountain cave, some cranes, stricken with compassion for the great prince, came there (9–11). Seeing that crying prince Shravistha's sons the Rishis Paippaladi and Koushika felt compassion and took him up. They then washed with water his two sides which were bruised against the rock and covered with blood. The sides of the prince were dark-blue like those of a goat and were high and well-formed. He therefore passed by the name of Ajapārsha. Thereupon those two foremost of the twice-born (Paippaladi and Koushika) named him Ajapārsha and brought him up in the house of a Rishi named Vemaka (12–14). Vemaka's wife brought up Ajapārsha as her son, so he became Vemaka's son and those two Brāhmanas became his councillors. Ajapārsha and the sons and grand-sons of Paippaladi and Koushika lived the same life. This Ajapārsha, born in the race of Puru, founded the family of the Pandavas (15-16). Formerly while transferring his decrepitude Nashusha's son the intelligent Yayāti sang this verse: "Earth will forsooth be divested of the sun, moon and planets but she will never be shorn of the Purus (17–18)."
Source: https://archive.org/details/AProseEnglishTranslationOfHarivamsh
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