10 Kripa’s history of the Bharatas
‘Ganga, the goddess of the Ganges,’ recounted Kripa, ‘was King Shantanu’s first wife. She it was who abandoned her divine nature in order to give birth to Bhishma. Later she abandoned also her husband, and for some years the king withdrew in grief from the company of women.
‘Then one day Shantanu met the beautiful Satyavati, and they fell passionately in love. Like Shantanu she already had a son, Vyasa, just a little younger than Shantanu’s Bhishma. Vyasa was the offspring of her earlier alliance with the rishi Parashara, and in later life was to develop into a singularly apanthropic individual. Indeed, no one seems to know quite where he is presently living.
‘Shantanu was eager to marry Satyavati, but her father, by origin a fisherman, by study highly
