Another king falls in love in the woods, with complicated outcomes.
Bharata was the king of Hastinapura after Dushyanta and lived to ripe old age and was popular enough. Hopefully he had a simpler love life. Many years after Bharata there came on the scene king Shantanu. How many years, you ask? I don’t know! Between Bharata and Shantanu were many generations with kings with fancy names like Samvarana the 6th and Pratipa the 13th. Hence the dotted line on the little chart here.
Both the characters in this chapter Shantanu and Satyavati have extensive back stories. For Shantanu, we’ll just do the TLDR version of his back story. Just know that he was married to Ganga and had a son called Devavrata.
Ganga, like the river?
Yes, the very same. Shantanu married a womanly river. Or a riverly woman. In any case, the son had no riverine characteristics and was just a solid guy. Ganga herself has a long story including being caught up in Shiva’s hair. But I must leave that branch alone and progress with our story on hand. But Satyavati’s back story needs some attention. Because this back story is going to come around and add some spice, plot twists and drama to our little chapter here.
In the kingdom of Vasu Uparichara, fishermen caught a big fat fish, and their dinner was thwarted this time too. Instead of a clunky ring this time the fish turned up with two babies inside its insides. A little boy and girl just playing and cooing in their fishy daycare. The dinner deprived fishermen thought the king might like to have a looky loo at the little goings on. Sure enough, the king was interested – in the boy baby — and decided to bring him up as his own son. The baby girl, he left with the fishermen to do as they pleased. Luckily, the fishermen did not make her their dinner, and one of them adopted her as his daughter. They called her Satyavati.
I thought they should have called her Matsyavati but got their consonants all mixed up
Matsyavati? Why?
Matsya = fish.
Ah I see what you did there. Right. Not a great name, but whatever.
Would have been so apt – seeing as she had a fishy start to life and had a strong fishy smell for a good part of her life. I bet it was the local bulles who nicknamed her Matsyagandhi – the one who smelled like fish.
Matsya gandhi like Mahatma Gandhi?
Sheesh no. I keep forgetting you are reading this and not hearing it. The mahatma person is Gaaaandhi. As are other folk with Gandhi for a surname. This one is pronounced gun-dhi. “Gandhi” = smelling of something. Matsyagandha = smelling of fish. Su-gandha = nice smelling. Dur-gandha = bad smelling. Btw, you can add su and dur as prefixes to mean good and bad.
Su-man beats dur-man and saves the day!!
That works!
And would a sous-chef be a good cook?
Aiaiai. Des jeu de mots avec sous – t’es dur!
Haha. ok. Vas-y
So Satyavati is growing up, feeling a little oppressed with this fish smell thing, but in otherwise great form. The rishi Parashara comes by the river and is quite taken with the young Satyavati, fish smell and all. He creates a thick, dark fog on an island mid river to get themselves some privacy from the paparazzi, and they hang out for a bit. To make Satayavati happy, Parashara is persuaded to do something about the fish smell. By the time he leaves, she’s smelling like she’s fresh from a spa… and she’s pregnant. The download speed on this pregnancy turns out to be in the petabytes. Not only is the kid born immediately, but the little boy also goes from 0 to full on adult in about five minutes. Because the boy-man was born on the dark island, he gets named Krishna Dwaipayana. And because #adulting, it doesn’t make sense to go home with his mom and he decides to move out right away. I’ll be happy to come see you any time, just call, he says, and leaves.
So in the space of an afternoon, Satyavati loses her BO and gains a full grown son. Talk about productivity! Make note of the rapid riser Krishna Dwaipayana. He’s coming back shortly. While he was away from this part of the story, Krisha Dwaipayana also took up the more snazzy name Veda Vyasa. That’s on account of his gig to organize all the thousands of verses in the vedas so people could make some sense of them. So this point on, I’m just calling him Veda Vyasa, or the even more snazzy VV.
Satyavati is ferrying people across the river, much happier and confident now with her new smell status. And then comes in our second visitor Shantanu, king of Hastinapura. He’s also smitten by Satyavati and wants to marry her. No rushing into things like Dushyanta. He asks Satayavti’s father, the fisherman, if he can marry Satyavati. The fisher father is of course willing – it’s advantageous to have a king for a son-in-law, you know. However he has a caveat. Sure, you can marry her, but Satyavati’s son will need to be the king of Hastinapura after you, he says.
People are really fond of negotiating for their kids to be kings! Shakuntala in the other version was also all about make my son king, no?
Yeah. It’s about power and popularity I guess? If a king is going to have a bunch of wives and three dozen kids, it’s easy to be reduced to a minor character with no real role, very quick. So palace intrigue and fighting to be king was standard procedure. So there it was again for Shantanu. One more person demanding to be king even before he was born. Remember he already had a grown son Devavrata who was all set to take over when he was done. He was a man of principles, and he did not want to dash the hopes of dashing Devavrata. He politely said no to the fisherman and went home.
But the fellow was in luuurve! He listened to sad songs and sighed and moped and was completely a damp sock around the palace. Devavrata asked him what was eating him, but he wouldn’t say and just sighed some more. You’d expect Devavrata to roll his eyes and let his old man be, but Devavrata decided to do some digging around with his father’s friends and security forces and figured out that there was a love interest called Satyavati. Pff, just someone he wants to marry, c’mon how hard can this be? I could bring him back his lady love and score some brownie points, he thinks. Off he goes to play matchmaker to his own dad! The fisherman however, is still keen on being the king’s father in law and grandfather of an actual king eventually.
Devavrata paced up and down, thought for a bit. On the one hand, was his dad’s happiness with this woman he loved. On the other hand his own career as king. If Shakespeare was writing this, he’d have a classic opportunity to say “To be or not to be (a king)”. In the end, Devavrata decided it would be cool with him if his dad married Satyavati and he gave the whole king thing a miss. There was plenty of other things to do, he figured. Given all the make-me-king frenzy around, it was pretty commendable and selfless decision. He told Satyavati’s father that, ok no problem, Satyavati’s son could be king, and he’d stay out of the way. But fisherman dad wasn’t quite satisfied. That’s all very well, he said. But what about your kids? There’s nothing stopping them from coming after the throne… you can’t quite make promises on their behalf! But I don’t even have any kids, said Devavrata, getting annoyed now. Sure, said the master negotiator, but you will pretty soon, seeing as you are a man already. My grandkid does not stand a chance by the time he gets around being born and of growing to some sensible, king-worthy age.
Devavrata had to agree that the man had a point. Also he was really tired of all this haggling. He was a good guy, just trying to get his daddy something he wanted. OK fine, he said. How about I don’t ever get married and don’t ever have any kids. How about then? Can we call it a deal? If you mean it, yeah sure, said the fisherman. Phew. finally. Maybe Devavrata had not quite thought it through, or maybe he had. But he was a man of his word, and solemnly swore he’d never have sex again. It was a very big deal for a king type person, or anyone really, to be making such promises. Word got around about this super quick especially among the gods and other heavenly beings. They all lined up in the sky, whispering to each other, a bit in awe, and to take a good look at this man who was making such vows. They arranged for a flower shower and other displays of appreciation to rain down from the sky. Rainbows and heavenly music and such, most likely. They even gave Devavrata a new name: Bheeshma
What does that mean?
Bheeshma means terrible, the one who made a terrible vow.
As in, it was a terrible idea?
More like terror-inducing
Like Ivan the Bheeshma
Aren’t we on a roll today!
So Devavrata was called Bheeshma from that day on. When he reached home, Shantanu was pretty overcome. To get Shantanu the love he wanted, Bheeshma was never going to have love. Heavy stuff. To get over his guilt, Shantanu gave his son a boon: Bheeshma would live as long as he wished and would die at will – death would come to Bheeshma only when Bheeshma wanted it.
Like Ignotus Peverell
You are really into comparisons, huh? Yeah. Like Ignotus in Beedle the Bard. Only Bheeshma did not get a cloak of invisibility and a peaceful life. He just got to live a really really long, action-filled, love-less life.
Manasvini 
Leave a comment