Shantanu

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Shantanu ( Sanskrit शंतनु, śaṁtanu m. , Also शान्तनु, śāntanu) was a king in ancient India and an ancestor of the Pandavas and Kauravas in the Mahabharata . He was the son of Pratipa and father of Bhishma (with Ganga ) and of Vichitravirya and Chitrangada (with Satyavati ).

Life story in the Mahabharata

Marriage to Ganga

Shantanu was an excellent archer and loved the hunt. One day he met the goddess Ganga and fell in love with her. Without hesitation, he accepted her condition for marriage: he must never interfere in what she was doing and never scold her. The marriage is happy, but after each birth of a child, Ganga throws it into the river. After Shantanu tolerated this seven times in great agony, he intervened the eighth time. Because he did not keep her condition, Ganga then breaks the connection, but spares the eighth child and takes them with him to the heavenly world to raise them. 16 years passed before Shantanu saw his son Devavrata again, who has meanwhile also become a great archer. Ganga now entrusts him to his father for further education and training, he becomes his heir.

Marriage to Satyavati

Four years later Shantanu falls in love with Satyavati, the daughter of a fisherman chief. This sets the condition for the marriage that only Satyavati's son may inherit. This throws Shantanu into a conflict of conscience because he would have to deprive his son Devavrata of his rights. But when he learns of the problem, he voluntarily renounces all his rights and even a marriage so that any later succession dispute would be excluded. Shantanu is delighted with this sacrifice of his son, who is now called "Bhishma", and grants him the favor that he would only die if he so wished. Bhishma later becomes an important figure in the Mahabharata, he is the family senior who is admired by all. Shantanu married Satyavati and with her became the father of two sons, Chitrangada and Vichitravirya.

literature

  • JAB van Buitenen, Mahabharata , Book 1, The Book of the Beginning, Chicago 1973, pp. 216-230

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Monier Williams Online Sanskrit Dictionary, p. 1054, col. 3
  2. ↑ JAB van Buitenen, Mahabharata , vol. 1, Chicago 1973, p. 472
  3. ↑ The background is a mythological event: it is about gods who had to go to earth for a short time due to a curse, but were immediately redeemed again. (See Mbhr. 1.93)
  4. ↑ Mbhr. 1.91-95. Van Buitenen (1973), pp. 216-230