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TheHarivamsa (Sanskrit:हरिवंश,lit. 'The genealogy ofHari',IAST:Harivaṃśa[1]) is an important work ofSanskrit literature, containing 16,374shlokas, mostly in theanustubhmetre. The text is also known as theHarivamsa Purana. This text is believed to be akhila (appendix or supplement) to theMahabharata[2][3] and is traditionally ascribed toVyasa. The most celebrated commentary of theMahabharata byNeelakantha Chaturdhara, theBharata Bhava Deepa also covers theHarivamsa. According to a traditional version of theMahabharata, theHarivamsa is divided into twoparvas (books) and 12,000 verses.[2] These are included with the eighteenparvas of theMahabharata.[3] The Critical Edition has threeparvas and 5,965 verses.[4]
The Adi Parva of Harivamsa describes the creation of the cosmos and the legendary history of the kings of the Solar and Lunar dynasties leading up to the birth ofKrishna. Vishnu Parva recounts the history of Krishna up to the events prior to theMahabharata.[5] Bhavishya Parva, the third book, includes two alternate creation theories, hymns to Shiva and Vishnu and provides a description of theKali Yuga.[6] While theHarivamsa has been regarded as an important source of information on the origin ofVishnu's incarnation Krishna, there has been speculation as to whether this text was derived from an earlier text and what its relationship is to theBrahma Purana, another text that deals with the origins of Krishna.[7]
The bulk of the text is derived from two traditions, thepañcalakṣaṇa tradition, that is, the five marks of thePurana corpus one of which is thevaṃśa genealogy, and stories about the life of Krishna as a herdsman.
The text is complex, containing layers that go back to the 1st or 2nd centuries BCE.[9]
Probably there was an oral previous version because later in time, the text was enlarged by additions and was matched in style to the Mahabharata.[10]
The origin of this appendix is not precisely known but it is apparent that it was a part of theMahabharata by the 1st century CE because "the poetAshvaghosha quotes a couple of verses, attributing them to theMahabharata, which are now only found in theHarivamsa."[11]
Sivaprasad Bhattacharyya, also considered that Ashvaghosha referred to the Harivamsa, and found internal and external evidence that it was an authoritative text by the first century CE and that its later redaction took place around the end of the second or beginning of the third century CE.[12]
Edward Washburn Hopkins considered theMahabharata increased by the addition of theHarivamsa c. 200 CE,[13] but also the possible existence of Harivamsa as part of the around hundred thousand verses within the Mahabharata as it can be attested in the Southern recension of the latter.[14]
R. C. Hazra has dated the Purana to the 4th century CE on the basis of the description of therasa lila in it, as according to him, theVisnu Purana and theBhagavata Purana belong to the 5th century CE and 6th century CE respectively.[15] According to Dikshit, the date of theMatsya Purana is 3rd century CE. When we compare the biography of Krishna, the account of Raji, and some other episodes as depicted in theHarivaṃśa, it appears to be anterior to the former. Therefore, theViṣṇu parva and theBhaviṣya parva can be dated to at least the 3rd century CE.
J. L. Masson and D. H. H. Ingalls regard the language of Harivamsa not later than 2nd or 3rd century CE and possibly from the 1st century CE; and André Couture that Mathura's description in Harivamsa is similar to cities of Kushana period (1st to mid-3rd century CE).[16]
By its style and contents, theHarivaṃśa's Adi parva appears to be anterior to theViṣṇu parva andBhaviṣya parva. The verses quoted byAsvaghosa belong to this parva. On this basis, we can safely assume theHarivaṃśa parva (except for the later interpolations) to be at least as old as the 1st century CE.
TheHarivamśa is available in three editions. The vulgate text of theHarivamśa has total 271adhyāyas (chapters), divided into threeparvas,Harivaṃśa parva (55 chapters),Viṣṇu parva (81 chapters) andBhaviṣya parva (135 chapters). The traditional edition contains 12000 shlokas (verses) 2 sub-parvas, the Harivamsa Parva (187 chapters) and the Bhavishya Parva (48 chapters) with a total of 235 chapters. The Critical Edition or CE (1969–71, Ed. P.L. Vaidya), estimated to be c. 300 Common Era by Vaidya,[17] is around a third (118 chapters in 6073 slokas)[18] of this vulgate edition. Like the vulgate, the chapters in the CE are divided into three parvas,Harivaṃśa parva (chapters 1-45),Viṣṇu parva (chapters 46-113) andBhaviṣya parva (chapters 114 -118). Vaidya suggests that even the CE represents an expanded text and proposes that the oldest form ofHarivamśa probably began with chapter 20 (which is whereAgni Purana 12 places its start) and must have ended with chapter 98 of his text.[19]
TheHarivamsa has been translated in many Indian vernacular languages; The vulgate version containing 3 books and 271 chapters has not been translated into English yet. The only English translation of the traditional version containing 3 sub-parvas—Harivamsa parva (55 chapters), Vrishnu parva (131 chapters), and Bhavishya parva (49 chapters) for a total of 235 chapters—is by Manmatha Nath Dutt in 1897 and it is in the public domain. The critical edition has been translated into English twice so far, once in 2016 by the late economistBibek Debroy and in 2019 by Simon Brodbeck.
It has been translated intoFrench by M. A. Langlois, 1834–35.[20]
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