Shantanu- Hindu FigureMortal"King of Hastinapura"

Marriage to Ganga

Shantanu was a king of the Kuru dynasty. In a previous birth he had been King Mahabhisha, cursed by Brahma to be reborn on earth after staring at the goddess Ganga in the celestial court. Reborn as Shantanu, he encountered a beautiful woman on the banks of the Ganges and proposed marriage. She agreed on one condition: he must never question any of her actions.

After each of their first seven sons was born, Ganga carried the infant to the river and drowned him. Shantanu watched in anguish but kept his vow. When she moved to drown the eighth, he stopped her. Ganga revealed her identity and explained that the seven children were the Vasus, celestial beings cursed to be born as mortals, whom she had freed by returning them to the heavens. The eighth son, Devavrata, she left with Shantanu before vanishing into the river.

Bhishma's Vow

Years later, Shantanu fell in love with Satyavati, a fisherwoman's daughter who lived on the banks of the Yamuna. Her father agreed to the marriage only if Satyavati's sons would inherit the throne instead of Devavrata. Shantanu could not ask his eldest son to surrender his birthright and returned to Hastinapura heartbroken.

When Devavrata learned the cause of his father's grief, he went to Satyavati's father himself and took a vow of lifelong celibacy, renouncing both the throne and all future descendants. From that day he was known as Bhishma, the one of the terrible oath. Shantanu blessed him with the power to choose the time of his own death. Satyavati's sons would die young without heirs, and the crisis of succession that followed would become the Mahabharata.