The miraculous birth of Matsya and Satyavati from a fish
King Vasu, commanded by his ancestors to hunt, discharges his seed while thinking of his wife. He sends it to her via a hawk, but a mid-air fight causes it to fall into the Yamuna, where it is swallowed by a cursed apsara living as a fish. The fish gives birth to human children, freeing the apsara and altering the course of a dynasty.
The command came from his ancestors: go and hunt. King Vasu obeyed, but his mind was not on the forest. It was on his wife, Girika. She had just purified herself and informed him her fertile time had arrived. As he rode out, thinking of her beauty, he became so excited his semen was discharged there in the woods.
He could not let it be wasted. Vasu collected the seed on a leaf. He saw a hawk nearby. “O amiable one,” he said. “Please take this to my wife Girika. She is in her season now.” The hawk took the leaf in its claws and flew swiftly toward the palace.
Another hawk saw it flying and, thinking it carried meat, attacked. The two birds fought in the sky, beaks clashing. In the struggle, the leaf fell. The king’s seed dropped into the waters of the Yamuna river.
Living in those waters was an apsara (celestial dancer) named Adrika, cursed by Brahma to live as a fish. In her fish form, she sped to where the seed fell and swallowed it immediately.
Some time later, fishermen caught a large, pregnant fish. When they cut it open, they found not roe, but human twins—a boy and a girl—inside. Astonished, they took the children to their king, Vasu.
Vasu accepted the boy as his own. He would grow to be a righteous king named Matsya. The moment the children were born, the curse on Adrika ended. She had been told she would be freed when she gave birth to human children. She left the fish’s body, assumed her divine form, and ascended to the sky.
The girl child, however, carried the smell of fish. Vasu gave her to the fishermen, saying she would be their daughter.