- Shantanu is a king and he rules the city Hastinapura
- Marries the incarnation of the rive Ganga
- Ganga will give birth to eight gods
- She downs each child to send them to heaven and takes the eight baby only to return him when he is older
- I like that Bhisma is willing to denounce his claim to the throne, just so his father may marry again
- This is the same kind of theme we saw in the other Indian Epic, when Rama's brother was willing to give up the throne to him
- The King marries Satyavati ( who early on reminds me of the evil queen from the Ramayana
- Swayamvara- I had to look this up, it is basically a coming out party, where a father picks husbands for his daughters
- It is interesting when Satyavati has her son Vyasa sleep with Vichitravirya's widows
- The results are even more interesting when one is born pale skinned, one is born blind and one is born without flaws
- All due to the way the widows reacted to Vyasa
- One thing that might be interesting to explore in this story is the idea that when Ganga takes Bisma away she takes him to Hogwarts
- After all, Hogwarts in my mind acts as a walkabout or some other coming of age ritual
- Kuntis Story was interesting because she had a baby with the sun god then sent the baby floating down the river in a basket
- this reminds me of the story of the pharaohs and Moses
- On thing that confuses me about this story is that Bhisma disappears, or at least seems too, maybe I need to read more carefully.
Ganga returning Bhisma to his father. Web Source
Mahabharata by Narayan
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