Rishi Harita

Harita belongs to the Angirasa lineage. In the Vishnu Purana [IV.3] Harita is the son of Yuvanashva, the son of Ambarisha, the son of Mandhatri, and the Angirasa Haritas descend from him. The Linga and Vayu Puranas call them Brahmins with the qualities of Kshatriyas, since the line began in a royal house. The gotra and pravara lists carry the same names in the pravara: Harita (or Angiras), Ambarisha, Yuvanashva.

The name is borne by more than one figure, and the sources do not tell us whether they are one man. There is the ancestor of the Haritas. There is the lawgiver, whose dharma work is quoted by later writers. There is the pupil of Atreya Punarvasu in the Ayurvedic tradition. And a sage Harita is among those who visit Bhishma on his bed of arrows in the Shanti Parva, according to the Puranic Encyclopaedia. This page keeps the strands apart.

1. Descent from Yuvanashva: the Vishnu Purana makes Harita the son of Yuvanashva, of Mandhatri's line, and says the Angirasa Haritas descend from him; the Linga and Vayu Puranas call them Brahmins with Kshatriya qualities (Vishnu Purana IV.3)
2. The Harita Dharmasutra and Smriti: a work of dharma in Harita's name is quoted by later lawgivers, above all on legal procedure (vyavahara); a thirty-chapter manuscript is reported but has not been published, and short smritis also carry his name
3. Cited in the older Dharmasutras: Apastamba names Harita among the earlier teachers of dharma, and the Baudhayana and Vasishtha Dharmasutras also quote him; Yajnavalkya's Smriti lists him among the teachers of dharma
4. Pupil of Atreya Punarvasu: in the Ayurvedic tradition Harita is one of the six pupils of Atreya Punarvasu, with Agnivesha, Bhela, Jatukarna, Parashara and Ksharapani, and is credited with a samhita

The Harita Dharmasutra is lost as a whole. Bühler notes that fragments or altered versions of Harita's work on the sacred law survive, and Julius Jolly collected its quotations on legal procedure from digests such as the Apararka and the Smriticandrika. A manuscript of thirty chapters, which Jolly described in 1896, has not been published, and Kane's History of Dharmasastra (vol. 1) discusses the attempts to reconstruct the text. Two shorter works, the Laghu-Harita and the Vriddha-Harita Smritis, are printed under his name and are a different matter.

The Harita Samhita is a medical work. The Ayurvedic tradition makes Harita a pupil of Atreya Punarvasu, and Britannica notes that each of the six pupils is credited with a samhita. Agnivesha's, as revised in the Charaka Samhita, is the best known. No source checked dates the printed Harita Samhita or shows that it is by the lawgiver, so the two should not be merged.

• A forest hermitage of the Angirasa line
• A river bank where the purifying rites are kept