Brihadratha, also known as Maharatha, was the founder of the Barhadratha dynasty, the earliest ruling dynasty of Magadha

Magadha

Magadha formed one of the sixteen Mahājanapadas or kingdoms in ancient India. The core of the kingdom was the area of Bihar south of the Ganga; its first capital was Rajagriha then Pataliputra...

. According to the Mahabharata

Mahabharata

The Mahabharata is one of the two major Sanskrit epics of ancient India and Nepal, the other being the Ramayana. The epic is part of itihasa....

 and the Puranas

Puranas

The Puranas are a genre of important Hindu, Jain and Buddhist religious texts, notably consisting of narratives of the history of the universe from creation to destruction, genealogies of kings, heroes, sages, and demigods, and descriptions of Hindu cosmology, philosophy, and geography.Puranas...

, he was the eldest of the five sons of Vasu, the Kuru king of Chedi

Chedi Kingdom

Chedi kingdom was one among the many kingdoms ruled during early periods by Paurava kings and later by Yaduvanshi Rajput kings in the central and western India. It falls roughly in the Bundelkhand division of Madhya Pradesh regions to the south of river Yamuna and along river Betwa or Vetravati...

. and his queen Girika. The name of Brihadratha is also found in the Rigveda

Rigveda

The Rigveda is an ancient Indian sacred collection of Vedic Sanskrit hymns...

 (I.36.18, X.49.6).

Successors of Brihadratha

All the Puranas mention his brother (or son) Kushagra, as his successor. Kushagra was succeeded by his son Vrishava (or Rishava). Pushpavanta (or Pushyavanta or Punyavanta) was the son of Vrishava. Pushpavanta was succeeded by his son Satyahita (or Satyadhrita). Satyahita's son was Sudhanvana (or Sudharmana, Dharmatma of Dhanusha). Dhanusha was succeeded by his son Sarva (or Urja or Jatu or Jahu or Jantu). Sarva was succeeded by his son Sambhava. According to the Agni Purana

Agni Purana

The Agni Purana, one of the 18 Mahapuranas, a genre of Hindu religious texts, contains descriptions and details of various incarnations of Vishnu. It also has details account about Rama, Krishna, Prithvi, and the stars...

, Sambhava was succeeded by his son Jarasandha

Jarasandha

Jarasandha was a great and legendary king of Magadha. He was the son of a vedic king named Brihadratha. He was also a great devotee of Lord Shiva. But he is generally held in negative light owing to his enmity with the Yadav clan in the Mahābhārata....

, the noted warrior king mentioned in the Mahabharata. But all other Puranic genealogical lists mention the name of Brihadratha again between either Jantu and Jarasandha or Sambhava and Jarasandha. Jarasandha was succeeded by his son Sahadeva

Sahadeva of Magadha

Sahadeva was a ruler of the Barhadratha dynasty of Magadha. In the Mahabharata, he is mentioned as the son of Jarasandha, who was placed on the throne of Magadha by the Pandavas on the former's death in a duel with the Pandava prince BhimaAccording to the Puranas, he was killed in the Kurukshetra...

 who was killed in the Kurukshetra war

Kurukshetra war

According to the Indian epic poem Mahābhārata, a dynastic succession struggle between two groups of cousins of an Indo-Aryan kingdom called Kuru, the Kauravas and Pandavas, for the throne of Hastinapura resulted in the Kurukshetra War in which a number of ancient kingdoms participated as allies of...