Rishi Kapi

Kapi is a sage of the Angirasa group and the name behind the Kapi gotra. The Vishnu Purana [IV.19] says that Mahavirya's son Urukshaya had three sons, Trayyaruna, Pushkarin and Kapi, and that the last became a Brahmin. Other Puranas read the name as Kavi, and the Matsya Purana speaks of the Kavyas as a branch descended from him. He thus belongs to a set of families that began in royal houses and then joined the Angirasa group: Kapi, Kanva, Mudgala, Samkriti and Garga. The medieval pravara digest known as the Gotra-Pravara-Nibandha-Kadambam says that the Puranas call all five Kshatriyas who became Brahmins.

The pravara of the Kapis is Angirasa, Amahiyava, Aurukshaya. Aurukshaya means a descendant of Urukshaya, which fits the Puranic account. The digests disagree on marriage. Purushottama and Kamalakara say the Kapis may not marry descendants of Bharadvaja, and the Nibandha editor notes that the practice runs both ways. Ashvalayana and Abhinava-Madhavacharya say they may, since Kapi was born a Kshatriya and was not Bharadvaja's true descendant.

1. Becoming a Brahmin: the Vishnu Purana says that of Urukshaya's three sons the last, Kapi, became a Brahmin; other Puranas read the name as Kavi, and the Matsya Purana speaks of the Kavyas as a branch of Brahmins descended from him
2. The Kapi pravara: the pravara of the Kapis is Angirasa, Amahiyava, Aurukshaya, the last name pointing to Urukshaya's line (Gotra-Pravara-Nibandha-Kadambam, table of the Bharadvaja group)
3. Marriage with the Bharadvajas: medieval digests disagree on whether Kapis may marry into the Bharadvaja gotra; Purushottama and Kamalakara forbid it, Ashvalayana and Abhinava-Madhavacharya allow it
4. A name that is not his: Vrishakapi: Rigveda 10.86 is the Vrishakapi hymn, a dialogue about a monkey-like friend of Indra; the word kapi there means monkey, and no source checked ties the Angirasa sage Kapi to it

An older version of this page joined the sage to Rigveda 10.86. The two are not shown to be connected. In the hymn, which sits in the tenth book, one of the later books of the Rigveda, Vrishakapi ("the bull-like monkey") is a creature that Indra calls his friend. In Griffith's translation someone complains that Kapi has spoiled what was made for her, Indra defends him, and almost every verse ends with the refrain "Supreme is Indra over all." The hymn is obscure, and translators read it in different ways. Some writers have called Vrishakapi an early form of the monkey figure later seen in Hanuman, which is a modern comparison and not a statement of the text.

The sage Kapi, by contrast, appears only in the genealogies and the pravara lists. No hymn or other text is ascribed to him in the sources checked, and his dates are not known.

• The royal house of Urukshaya, in the line of Puru, where he was born
• Indra's house, where the Vrishakapi hymn is set
• An Angirasa family's fire altar, where the Kapi pravara is recited
• A Bharadvaja household, with which the Kapis are sometimes reckoned