Gaṅgā–Śāntanu Upākhyāna

The Gaṅgā–Śāntanu Upākhyāna is told in the Mahābhārata, Ādi Parva, Sambhava Parva, Chapters 96 to 99. Gaṅgā, the sacred river and a devī, married the Kuru king Śāntanu. She bore him eight sons. She drowned the first seven at birth and kept the eighth. At last she told Śāntanu the reason for what she had done, and then gave the eighth son back to his father. That son became Bhīshma.

This episode goes together with the Mahābhishopākhyāna and the Āpavopākhyāna. These explain the earlier events that made the marriage necessary.

Gaṅgā comes down and speaks with Pratīpa

Gaṅgā came down to earth after the events in Brahmā’s court. She went to Pratīpa, the righteous Kuru king who was to be the grandfather of Bhīshma. She sat on Pratīpa’s right thigh. In the tradition this shows a daughter’s claim, not a lover’s.

Pratīpa asked what she wanted. Gaṅgā said she wished to marry his son. Pratīpa answered that he could not take her as his own wife, because she had sat on his right thigh and not his left. The right thigh is for daughters and daughters-in-law, and the left is for the wife. But he promised that when his son Śāntanu was born and grown, he would be given to her in marriage. He asked only one thing: that she never leave his son and never do anything to harm him.

Gaṅgā agreed, with one condition of her own. Śāntanu must never question anything she did, whatever it was. If he ever questioned her or tried to stop her, she would leave him at once. Pratīpa accepted this for his son.

Śāntanu marries Gaṅgā

In time Pratīpa grew old, and Śāntanu was born and grew to manhood. Before he gave up the throne and went to the forest, Pratīpa told Śāntanu: “A woman of divine beauty will come to you at the river. She is worthy of you. Marry her without question and do whatever she asks. Never ask who she is, and never oppose her deeds.”

One day Śāntanu came to the bank of the Gaṅgā and saw a woman of matchless beauty standing by the river. She was Gaṅgā herself in human form. Śāntanu was at once charmed. He went to her, and she knew him as her destined husband. They married and lived in great happiness.

The terms of the marriage were clear. Śāntanu would never question her. Whatever she did, however strange, he would stay silent.

The seven sons drowned

In time Gaṅgā bore Śāntanu a son. Right after the birth she walked to the river and threw the baby into the Gaṅgā, sending him back to the divine world. Śāntanu watched in anguish but stayed silent, bound by the terms of their marriage.

The same happened six more times, so that seven sons were born and seven were thrown into the river. Each time Śāntanu saw what looked like the killing of his children and said nothing.

When Gaṅgā bore the eighth son and moved towards the river, Śāntanu could hold back no longer. He called out and begged her to stop. He wept and said he could not bear to see another child drowned. He asked who she was and why she did this.

By asking, he broke the condition of their marriage.

Gaṅgā tells the truth

Gaṅgā stopped. She turned to Śāntanu and told him who she was. She was the river Gaṅgā herself, the daughter of Himavān, and she had taken human form to fulfil a divine duty.

She then told him the whole account. The eight Vasus had been cursed by Vasishṭha for stealing Nandinī. They had asked her to be their mother. She had agreed to bear them and to free the first seven quickly by drowning them. The eighth, she said, would live long but without children, and he would keep celibacy.

She said: “The seven I have already freed. This eighth I will keep for you. He will be your son and will live a great life. But because you questioned me, I can no longer stay. I must go back.”

She took the baby and left. She would raise him and train him under the greatest teachers, and return him to Śāntanu when the time was right.

Devavrata is returned to Śāntanu

Years passed. Śāntanu lived alone, grieving for Gaṅgā and for the son he had never had the chance to know.

One day Śāntanu was hunting near the Gaṅgā and saw that the river’s flow had grown small. He went upstream to find out why. There he found a radiant young man standing in the river, shooting arrows into the air that made a dam across the current. The young man had mastered the Vedas and the whole of Dhanurveda. Vasishṭha himself had trained him, and later Paraśurāma. He was unmatched in beauty, strength and learning.

Gaṅgā appeared beside Śāntanu and said: “This is your son Devavrata. I am returning him to you now.” She gave the boy to his father and left.

This was the boy who would later take his great vow and become known to the whole world as Bhīshma.

Sources

• Mahābhārata, Ādi Parva, Sambhava Parva, Chapters 96–99