An Introduction to the Jaiminīyasaṃhitā of the Brahmāṇḍapurāṇa

The long interpolated section constituted by adhyāyas 21-68 of BḍP 2,3 (cf. the continuity between adhyāyas 20 and 59), important for the analysis of some emblematic myths related to the Bhārgava brahmin-and-warrior Rāma Jāmadagnya and to the solar king Sagara (cf. its noteworthy use by Adalbert Gail and Andreas Bock in their books dealing respectively with the two figures) is clearly, according to the standard (Bombay) edition of this purāṇa, an incomplete text, as shown by the position of the successive 'layers of interlocution': at the end of the section the sage Jaimini appears suddenly in dialogue with an unknown king, whereas at the beginning it was the sage Vasiṣṭha who was engaging in dialogue with king Sagara, which is at the least structurally problematic. The still unedited purāṇic text claiming to be the Jaiminīyasaṃhitā (JaiSa) of the Brahmāṇḍapurāṇa, Madhyamabhāga, in about 97 adhyāyas, preserved in Malayalam-script manuscripts, is in fact the same but in this case a complete 'Jaiminian' text, as I have had the opportunity to discover. At the beginning of that long tale (four times the length of the interpolated section as edited in the BḍP), Jaimini starts his dialogue with the solar king known as Hiraṇyanābha and tells the creation of the world and the genealogies of kings up to the story of Sagara; then the dialogue between Vasiṣṭha and Sagara takes place, in which, after the tale of king Ila/Sudyumna and the description of some important rituals, the story of the Hehaya king Kārtavīryārjuna and his fight with Paraśurāma is narrated at length; thereafter the dialogue between Jaimini and Hiraṇyanābha restarts for the conclusion of the story of Sagara. The aim of the present paper is to describe the structure and the contents of the JaiSa — a purāṇa which, through its narrative aspects and poetic ornaments, offers the characteristics of both a kathā and a kāvya; to disuss the question of its possible date, place and milieu of composition; and to provide a first manuscript explanation for its later partial inclusion within the body of the BḍP.