Janamejaya was a Kuru king who reigned during the Middle Vedic period.
16 Facts About Janamejaya
1.
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Janamejaya appears as a figure in later legends and traditions, the Mahabharata and the Puranas.
3.
The Pancavimsa Brahmana mentions a Janamejaya who was a priest at a snake sacrifice, but Macdonell and Keith consider him to be a different person than Janamejaya the Kuru king.
4.
Four copper-plate grant inscriptions purportedly issued during Janamejaya's reign were discovered in the 20th century, but were proved to be fake by historians.
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Janamejaya was the grandson of great warrior Abhimanyu and the great-grandson of Arjuna, the valiant warrior hero of the Mahabharata.
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Janamejaya ascended to the Kuru throne following the death of his father.
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Janamejaya's significance comes as the listener of the first narration of the Mahabharata, narrated by Vaishampayana, a pupil of Vyasa.
8.
In Mahabharata, Janamejaya was mentioned as having three able brothers, Srutasena, Ugrasena and Bhimasena.
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Janamejaya wanted to exterminate the race of Takshaka who was responsible for the death of his father Parikshit.
10.
King Janamejaya was responsible for the retelling of the famous epic Mahabharata, a story of Janamejaya's ancestors from the time of Bharata up to the great Kurukshetra War between his great-grandfathers the Pandavas and their paternal cousins the Kauravas.
11.
King Janamejaya ascended to the throne of Hastinapura upon the death of his father Parikshit.
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Janamejaya had been cursed by a sage to die so, the curse having been consummated by the Naga King Takshaka.
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Janamejaya bore a deep grudge against the serpents for this act, and thus decided to wipe them out altogether.
14.
Janamejaya's mother Manasa was a Naga and his father a Brahmin.
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Janamejaya had to listen to the words of the learned Astika and set the then-imprisoned Takshaka free.
16.
Janamejaya stopped the genocide of the Nagas and ended all enmity with them.