viśvā—mitra See below.

viśvā-mitra m. (prob.) ‘friend of all’, N. of a celebrated Ṛṣi or Sage (having the patr. Gāthina, Gādheya, and Jāhnava; he was at first a functionary, together with Vasiṣṭha, of Su-dās, king of the Tṛtsus; seeing V˚ preferred by the king, he went over to the Bharatas, but could not prevent their being defeated by Su-dās, although he caused the waters of the rivers Vipāś and Śutudrī to retire and so give the Bharatas free passage, RV. iii, 33; he was born as a Kṣatriya, deriving his lineage from an ancestor of Kuśika, named Purū-ravas, of the lunar race of kings, and himself sovereign of Kanyā-kubja or Kanoj; his fame rests chiefly on his contests with the great Brāhman Vasiṣṭha, and his success in elevating himself, though a Kṣatriya, to the rank of a Brāhman See Manu. vii, 42 : the Rāmāyaṇa, which makes him a companion and counsellor of the young Rāma-candra, records [i, 51-65] how Viśvāmitra, on his accession to the throne, visited Vasiṣṭha's hermitage, and seeing there the cow of plenty [probably typical of go, ‘the earth’], offered him untold treasures in exchange for it, but being refused, prepared to take it by force; a long contest ensued between the king and the saint [symbolical of the struggles between the Kṣatriya and Brāhmanical classes], which ended in the defeat of Viśvāmitra, whose vexation was such that, in order to become a Brāhman and thus conquer his rival, he devoted himself to intense austerities [during which he was seduced by the nymph Menakā and had by her a daughter, Śakuntalā], gradually increasing the rigour of his mortification through thousands of years, till he successively earned the titles of Rājarṣi, Ṛṣi, Maharṣi, and finally Brahmarṣi ; he is supposed to be the author of nearly the whole of RV. iii, and of ix, 67, 13-15; x, 137, 5; 167; moreover, a law-book, a Dhanurveda, and a medical wk. are attributed to him), RV. &c. &c.