About
Yudhajit — Vrishni Prince, Son of Vrishni I, Father of Vrishni II
Yudhajit · Yudhajit Vrishni
Yudhajit is a Vrishni Yadava prince, son of Vrishni I (the youngest son of Satvata) by his wife Madri, and the father of Vrishni II — also called Prishni — who in turn was the father of Shvaphalka and Chitraka. Yudhajit is a genealogical link figure within the Vrishni line, significant primarily for his position in the descent sequence rather than for independent narrative episodes. He appears in the Harivamsha (Harivamsha Parva, Chapters 34 and 38), the Vishnu Purana (Book IV, Chapter XIII footnotes), and the Bhagavata Purana (Navama Skandha, Chapter XXIV) with variant accounts of his position and progeny across these sources. His name recurs within the broader Puranic literature as the name of other figures in separate genealogies, requiring careful disambiguation.
✦ The Name
Yudhajit is a Sanskrit compound from yudha (battle, war) and jit (conqueror, victor), meaning "conqueror in battle" or "victor in war." It is a common heroic name-compound in the Kshatriya tradition and appears independently in several genealogical lines across the Puranas, including as the name of a king of Kekaya who was the maternal uncle of Bharata in the Ramayana. The Yudhajit profiled here is specifically the son of Vrishni I of the Satvata-Vrishni line and must be distinguished from all other figures bearing the same name.
✦ Lineage
- Father: Vrishni I — youngest son of Satvata and Kaushalya; patriarch of the Vrishni clan; had two wives, Gandhari (mother of Anamitra) and Madri (mother of Yudhajit and Devamidhusha).
- Mother: Madri — second wife of Vrishni I.
- Brother (by Gandhari): Anamitra — father of Nighna, and in some recensions father of Shini; ancestor of the Shaineya line (Shini — Satyaka — Satyaki / Yuyudhana).
- Brother (by Madri): Devamidhusha — whose son Shura begat Vasudeva, the father of Krishna and Balarama; making Devamidhusha the great-grandfather of Krishna on the paternal side.
- Son: Vrishni II (also called Prishni) — who had two sons, Shvaphalka and Chitraka; father of Akrura's line.
✦ Textual Variants and Inconsistencies
The principal variant concerns whether Anamitra and Shini are sons of Yudhajit or of his brother Sumitra (an alternate name for Anamitra in some sources). The Vishnu Purana (Book IV, Ch. XIII) states that Vrishni I had two sons, Sumitra and Yudhajit, and that from Sumitra came Anamitra and Shini — making Yudhajit's line in that text a separate branch whose progeny are not named. The Harivamsha (Ch. 34) gives Yudhajit as a son of Madri who begat Vrishni II and Andhaka II. The Bhagavata Purana (9.24.14–15) gives Anamitra and Shini as the sons of Yudhajit directly — a third distinct arrangement. Wilson's footnote to the Vishnu Purana (footnote 435 at Book IV, Ch. XIII) catalogues these differences across the Vayu, Matsya, Brahma, and Agni Puranas, noting that the Matsya Purana also makes Yudhajit the ancestor of Akrura through a line involving Rishabha and Jayanta as additional intermediaries between Yudhajit and Shvaphalka.
Additionally, the Harivamsha (Ch. 34) records that Madri's son Yudhajit begat two sons named Vrishni and Andhaka. This creates a second pair of Vrishni and Andhaka within the same generation — Vrishni II and Andhaka II as sons of Yudhajit, distinct from their great-uncle Vrishni I (son of Satvata) and their great-great-uncle Andhaka (also son of Satvata). The name repetition across generations is a frequent feature of Yadava genealogy that contributes to textual confusion.
✦ Connection to the Wider Genealogy
Through his son Vrishni II, Yudhajit is the grandfather of Shvaphalka and Chitraka, and thus the great-grandfather of Akrura and all of Shvaphalka's sons. Through his brother Devamidhusha, Yudhajit is a paternal uncle of Shura and a great-uncle of Vasudeva, making him a collateral ancestor of Krishna on the paternal side. Yudhajit thus stands at the generational midpoint between Satvata's founding of the clan and the generation of Shvaphalka and Akrura.
✦ References
- Harivamsha, Harivamsha Parva, Chapter 34 (Sanskrit text; mahabharata-resources.org) — names Yudhajit as son of Madri and son of Vrishni I; records his two sons Vrishni II and Andhaka II.
- Harivamsha, Harivamsha Parva, Chapter 38 (Sanskrit text; dvaipayana.net) — repeats the sequence Yudhajit — Prishni (Vrishni II) — Shvaphalka and Chitraka.
- Vishnu Purana, Book IV, Chapter XIII, footnote 435 (trans. H. H. Wilson, 1840) — records variant readings across the Vayu, Matsya, Agni, Brahma Puranas and Harivamsha regarding Yudhajit's progeny and position.
- Bhagavata Purana, Navama Skandha, Chapter XXIV, verse 14–15 (Vedabase) — gives Anamitra and Shini as sons of Yudhajit in the Bhagavata recension.
- Wisdomlib, "Anamitra" entry (purankosh.in) — secondary reference recording the Matsya Purana variant placing multiple sons under Anamitra rather than under Yudhajit.