Who is Ganga?

The bargain by the river

King Shantanu met a radiant woman on the bank of a river and asked her to be his wife. She said yes, on one condition: he must never question anything she did. The moment he did, she would leave.

The king agreed. Then their first son was born, and she carried the baby to the river and gave him to the water. Then the second, and the third. Shantanu kept his promise through seven sons. When she carried the eighth to the river, he finally cried out.

Why she did it

She was Ganga, the goddess of the river, and she explained. Eight gods, the Vasus, had been cursed to be born as humans. She had agreed to be their mother and to free each of them the moment they were born, so that their time on earth would be short. Only the eighth would have to stay and live a whole human life.

Ganga left as she had warned, and took the eighth boy with her.

The son she returned

Years later she came back and handed Shantanu a young man raised among sages, skilled in weapons and wise in scripture. This was Devavrata, who would become Bhishma. Ganga’s story is short, but it begins the line of the Kuru family, and it explains why Bhishma always seems a little larger than the people around him.