Pratipa
Pratipa ( Sanskrit प्रतीप pratīpa m. ) Is the name of a king in the Mahabharata . He was the father of Shantanu and grandfather of Bhishma .
Origin and family
According to sources in the Bhagavata , Vishnu, Matsya, Bhavishya and Vayu Purana , Pratipa was the great-grandson of Bhimasena and the son of Dilipa. According to the Mahabharata, however, he was the son of King Bhimasena and Princess Sukumari of the Kaikeyas tribe. He married Sunanda of the Shibi tribe and begat Shantanu, Devapi and Bahlika with her.
Meeting with Ganga
Once, while King Pratipa was meditating and praying on the Ganges, the river goddess Ganga approached him in the form of an extremely beautiful woman and asked him to embrace her in love. But Pratipa denied her wishes and told her that such behavior was not in accordance with his Dharma . Finally he suggested that she marry his son and become his daughter-in-law. Ganga agreed on the condition that his son should never find out about her high birth. In principle, he should never question whatever she is doing. Pratipa accepted these conditions, whereupon Ganga dived back into the water and disappeared. At that time, he and his wife had no children, but after completing some intense ascetic exercises, their son Shantanu was born to them. Later he would marry Ganga and become Bhishma's father.
literature
JAB van Buitenen, Mahabharata Book 1, Chicago 1973, pp. 214-220