After King Mahabhisha had ascended to heaven there was a
festival hosted there by the gods and King Mahabhisha was among the guests that
attended the festival. Now during the
festival a great wind blew by and lifted the sari of the goddess Ganga. All of the gods present turned their heads so
that Ganga might not be embarrassed but King Mahabhisha did not turn his
head. When the gods and goddesses saw this,
they were filled with anger. Brahma then
cursed him saying, “In time you will leave earth and be reborn as a human. In addition, Ganga will also be born as a
human where she shall inflict harm on you.
When she has done so my curse will lift.”
After a period of time passed, King Mahabhisha was reborn on
earth as the son of King Pratipa. His
name was Shantanu. Prior to Shantanu
being born Ganga had appeared to King Pratipa and had him promise to marry his
son to her and Ganga also left a warning for Shantanu.
When Shantanu had become a man, King Pratipa told him about
the warning saying, “A celestial maiden will be your wife, but do not judge the
propriety of what she does or who she is and she will be your wife forever.”
Later after King Pratipa had crowned Shantanu king, he was
walking along the banks of the river Ganga when he saw a breathtaking maiden
and fell in love with her. He then asked
her to marry him. She agreed but with
some stipulations. He had to promise
that he would not interfere with her actions nor could he ever address her
unkindly. The maiden said to him, “As
long as you behave kindly, I promise to live with you but as soon as you treat
me unkindly or interfere with me I will leave you. King Shantanu agreed to the conditions and
they were married.
King Shantanu lived happily with the maiden and soon a child
was born. The maiden then took the child
and threw it into the river killing it.
Then when the maiden had gotten pregnant again gave birth to the second
child she threw it again into the river killing it. The maiden continued to kill the babies up through the seventh child. When the eighth child
was about to throw it into the river King Shantanu stopped her and said to her,
“Do not kill your own child, your sin is heavy, why do you keep killing your
sons?”
.jpg) |
| Ganga leaving King Shantanu (Source: wikimedia) |
King Shantanu who had forgotten his promise with his father
and the maiden was then addressed by the maiden, “I will not kill this child,
but I will now leave you because you have broken our agreement. I am Ganga and I am here because of a curse
placed upon you in your previous incarnation.
The children I was killing were the Vasus who were cursed to be born
upon the earth and I was killing them so that they could return to heaven but
the eighth Vasu was to remain on earth for a long time as part of the curse. I will keep this child and raise him and will
return him to you in his youth.” Therefore,
Ganga and their son descended into the river Ganga.
Author’s Note:
This story follows the basic outline of the original story of King Shantanu and Ganga from The Story of the Great War: Some Lessons from the Mahabharata by Annie Besant. I retold it in my own words and tried to change it so that the language in the story was modern. I tried to place importance on the conversations and tried to give background information in the story on why the event occurred
Bibliography:
The Story of the Great War: Some Lessons from the Mahabharata by Annie Besant(1899)
I am impressed by the picture you choose. Ganga drowned her children because those kids are actually avatars of several gods. The last baby is known as Bhishma, who is saved by King Shantanu from drowning. Then Ganga told King Shantanu that she had to take this boy away and would return in the future. Years later, Ganga brought Bhishma back and Bhishma had become a mighty warrior.
ReplyDeleteI loved this story from the Mahabharata, but I did not know about the events that lead up to it. The fact that not only the children, but also the husband of Ganga were being punished is an interesting addition that was not in the edition that I read. You did a good job writing this story in your own style, but also following the traditional story and style of the Mahabharata. Good job!
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