Itihāsa / Mahābhārata chronicle / Ādi · 2 of 50
2. The river and the vow
Ādi (आदि)
Śantanu, king of the Kurus, sees a woman by the river and wants her as his wife. She agrees on one condition. He will never question what she does. She bears him sons, and she drowns each one. He bears it, until he cannot, and he asks. The condition breaks. She tells him who she is. She is Gaṅgā. The children were the Vasus, under a curse to be born as men, and she was freeing them. The last child she takes with her. Years later she gives him back to Śantanu, grown.
That child is Devavrata. He grows into the most formidable man in the kingdom, the son who would have been the uncontested heir. Then Śantanu falls in love again, with a fisher-girl, Satyavatī, and her father will not give her unless her son, not Devavrata, inherits. The kingdom is about to split a father from his happiness, or a son from his birthright.
Devavrata settles it himself. He renounces the throne. Then, so that no child of his can ever come back to claim it, he renounces marriage. The gods flower the sky, the telling says, and the name Bhīṣma, the terrible vow, replaces the name he had. From this hour the Kuru line has its strongest man and its emptiest succession. Almost every later grief stands on that vow. He will live on, unable to die until he consents, and he will serve kings he did not choose.
नेपालीमा
शन्तनुले नदीकिनारमा एउटी स्त्रीलाई देखेर विवाह गर्न चाहे। उनले एउटै सर्तमा मानिन्: उनले जे गरे पनि शन्तनुले कहिल्यै प्रश्न गर्ने छैनन्। ती गङ्गा थिइन्। उनले आफ्ना सन्तानलाई एक एक गरी पानीमा बगाइन्। शन्तनुले सके जति सहे, र अन्त्यमा सोधे, अनि सर्त टुट्यो। ती सन्तान श्राप पाएर मानिस भएर जन्मेका वसुहरू थिए, र गङ्गाले तिनलाई मुक्त गरिरहेकी थिइन्। अन्तिम छोरालाई उनले आफूसँगै लगिन्, र वर्षौँपछि हुर्केका देवव्रतलाई शन्तनुकहाँ फर्काइदिइन्। पछि शन्तनुलाई माझीकी छोरी सत्यवती मन परिन्। तर उनका पिताले देवव्रतको होइन, सत्यवतीको छोरा राजा हुने भए मात्र छोरी दिने भने। देवव्रतले राज्य त्यागे, र आफ्नो सन्तानले कहिल्यै दाबी नगरोस् भनेर विवाह पनि त्यागे। यसरी उनको नाम भीष्म, अर्थात् भयानक प्रतिज्ञा, भयो। पछिको लगभग सबै दुःख यही प्रतिज्ञामा उभिन्छ।