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Secondary Tales of the two Great Epics
is referred to as Matsya-sagandhā203_-the kin of a fisherman-which is quite a different thing. Quite likely, her birth from a fish, her being related to a fisherman, the easy glide from ‘Matsya-sagandha' to 'Matsya-gandhā', and the contrast it provided to the fact of an excellent body-odour which she obtained from the sage later on--all these factors seem to have incited the popular imagination to give the fishsmell-hence her name Matsyagandhā-to Satyavati.
The fact that the arch queen-mother of the entire host of the epic-heroes should be the daughter of a fisherman and, what is more, should be a virgin mother seems to have made the epic-poet quite upset. Therefore, he has overdone in providing the divins parentage to Satyavati. Her father Vasu Uparicara is shown to stand in very special relation with Indra. Her mother Adrikā is shown to be a cursed Apsaras. The fishy smell of her body perhaps motivates the fact of the cursed Apsaras-mother being given the form of a fish. Her pre-marital lover is shown to be a great sage, and her pre-marital child is shown to be a rare literary genius! The over-doing itself renders the attempt to cover up her low birth rather suspicious.
In the remaining portion of Adhyāya 57 are very briefly narrated, or rather simply counted, the births of the principal characters of the epic. Bhışma, the son of Santanu, was born in Gangā with the parts of Vasu.204 Dharma suffered a low birth by being born as Vidura on account of the curse of Sage Animāņdavya. The only fault that the sage had incurred was that in childhood he had pierced a female bird with a sharp grass-blade. The fault was not compensated for even by a thousandfold penance. It had to be repaid. So the sage, though not a thief, was yet suspected and impaled on a stake. Even a great sage is not spared from the irreversible law of karma-phala. For barbouring such a ruthless, almost mean, attitude, Dharma was cursed by the sage to suffer a mean birth. The divine births of Karna and the five Pāndava brothers, the incarnation of Vişņu as Křsna, the birth of Droņa from a trough in which the seed of sage Bharadvāja had dropped. the birth of twins Krpa and Krpi (the mother of Aśvatthāman) in the bunch of sara from the seed of sage Gautama Saradvat, the birth of Dhrstadyumna and Draupadi from the sacrificial alter of Drupada, births of Sakuni and Gāndhārī, births of Dhrtarăstra and Pandu in the wives of Vicitravīrya from the seed of sage Krsna Dvaipāyana Vyāsa, births of Abhimanyu in Subhadrā, of the five sons of five Pāņdavas in Draupadi and of Ghatotkaca in Hidimbā, of Sikhandin as Drupada's daughter turned later on by a Yaksa into a male - such are the various births briefly counted in this portion of Adhyāya 57. Many of these are again narrated in greater details at different places in the MBh. But their brief indications here with particular references to their original divine aspects are intended to prepare a background for what Dr. Sukthankar
le the tale of Genesis in Adhyāya 58-59. After Paraśurāma's annihilation of the 203 Cf. ĀdiP. 57.54; 57.55.
matsya-gāhty-abhisamsrayat/asīn matsya-sagandha'iva. 'sagandha' means 'belonging to one's
own fold'. Cp. sarvaḥ sagandh esu visvasiti/ Sākuntalam, Act v. 204 The story of Bhisma's birth is narrated in greater detail in Adip. 91-92-93. Also see below.
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