Maharaja Yuvanashva

Yuvanashva is the name of more than one king of the Solar dynasty, and the Puranas keep them apart. One is the father of Mandhatri, who bore his son from his own side. Another, called Yauvanashva, is the son of Ambarisha and the father of Harita. The second is the sage named in the Angirasa pravara "Angirasa, Ambarisha, Yauvanashva".

Why a king is named in a pravara. A pravara lists the sages whose line a family invokes. Yauvanashva, like Ambarisha and Mandhatri, was a king. The Vishnu Purana [IV.3] says: "The son of Ambarisha, the son of Mandhatri, was Yuvanashva; his son was Harita." Harita was the source of the Angirasa Haritas, who were Kshatriyas by birth and became Brahmins of the family of Angiras. The Bhagavata Purana [9.7.1] gives the same line and says that Ambarisha, Harita and Yauvanashva were very prominent in Mandhatri's dynasty. The 1900 pravara manual Gotra Pravar Nibandh Kadambam gives the Harita pravara as Angirasa, Ambarisha, Yauvanashva. It gives a second Harita pravara, Mandhatra, Ambarisha, Yauvanashva, and places the Haritas in the Ikshvaku line.

The father of Mandhatri. The Vishnu Purana [IV.2] lists him as a Yuvanashva late in the line from Ikshvaku, after Prasenajit. The Ramayana [Bala Kanda 70] makes him the son of Dhundhumara and the father of Mandhata. The two lists differ, and nothing settles which is older.

"Yauvanashva" also appears as the patronymic of Mandhatri himself, the "son of Yuvanashva". Monier-Williams names him the author of Rigveda 10.134.

1. The sanctified water: Yuvanashva had no son, and the sages prepared water at a sacrifice for his queen. In the Vishnu Purana [IV.2] he drank it unknowingly. A child formed in his body and was born through his right side, and the king did not die. The Mahabharata (Vana, Drona and Shanti Parvas) has him drink sacrificial butter during a hunt, and the Ashvins deliver the child.
2. Indra nurses the child: Indra offers to be the child's nurse, and the Purana explains the name Mandhatri from the words "mam dhasyati". In the Mahabharata Indra lets the child suck milk from his fingers.
3. Yauvanashva, son of Ambarisha: the second Yuvanashva is Mandhatri's grandson and fathers Harita, the source of the Haritas. The Bhagavata adds that the first Yuvanashva accepted Ambarisha, his grandson, as his own son.
4. The pravara: his name, with Ambarisha's, is carried by the Haritas and related gotras in "Angirasa, Ambarisha, Yauvanashva".

• Ayodhya: the seat of the Ikshvaku kings.
• A sacrifice by the sages: where the water for the birth rite was prepared.