Storytelling for Week 10: Never Question a Woman

Once upon a time there was a king. This king went by the name of Shantanu and was a Kuru king of Hastinapura. One day Shantanu was standing along the banks of a beautiful river just admiring the scenery. As he walked along the shore of what is known as the Ganges River, something magical seemed to have happen. Shantanu thinks to himself, "My oh my, is that a beautiful woman coming my way", being all flustered. A beautiful woman appeared before his eyes. The woman took his breath away and it was love at first sight for the two. Shantanu, without knowing the woman's true identity, asked her for her hand in marriage. The woman's response was quite unexpected to Shantanu as she said, "I will give you my hand in marriage as long as you vow to never questions my actions, for they all serve a purpose". Shantanu willingly accepted that answer, and off they went. Later after getting married, the couple had a beautiful son together. One day while along the banks of the river, Shantanu turned around and saw his wife drowning their child. His initial reaction was pure shock, "Nooo, what have you done! My beloved child!", he screamed in his head, but remembered that he had vowed to never question her actions. He distraught by the sight of this, and he was even more distraught by the fact that he was not able to question his wife about her action. Time goes on and Shantanu slowly begins to forget about the incident, and they end up having another child! When he finds out of the news Shantanu cheers with excited and exclaims, "All I want in life is to have my name be carried on by a beloved son of min!". After the child had been born, the same incident occurs. He turns around to watch his own wife drown his own child in the river. This continues to happen, until she had eventually ended up drowning seven of her babies. By their eighth child, Shantanu can not longer take it. She begins the motion of drowning the eighth child, when Shantanu abruptly stops her. "NO, please don't drown another one of my beloved children. I am desperate for a child! Why, oh why, must you drown all of our children, I do not understand!", he says in a fury. Even though this had broken the vow that Shantanu had once made to his wife, she explains to him. My dear husband, "Our eight children were the Eight Vasus who were cursed by Vasishtha to be born on earth as humans. However, he limited the curse and said that they would be free from the curse within a year of their life. So, I released each of them in order to return them to heaven". Ganga then leaves Santanu alone and devastated as she takes the child with her and submerges into the waters. He is left with nothing, and does not know if he will ever see his beloved wife or child again.

Image Information: Shantanu rushes to stop Ganga. Wikimedia

Author's Note: I decided to retell the story of Ganga drowning her children in the river, because I was really intrigued by this story. For my storybook, I wrote about the Ganges river, and I had actually read about this story before our assigned reading, so I knew I had wanted to do a storytelling post about it. I wanted to add a little bit of dialogue and inner thoughts to what Shantanu might have been thinking, and to kind of retell the story in my own way, but keeping to the same storyline.

Narayan, R.K. (1978). The Mahabharata.