Shantanu asks Ganga about the vasus' curse
As his wife Ganga prepares to leave with their son, a heartbroken Shantanu stops her. He must know why the divine vasus were cursed to be born as humans, and what fate awaits the extraordinary boy who is his son.
Shantanu saw his son — the boy he had named Gangadatta, "gift of Ganga" — about to be taken away. The sorrow of losing him was sharp, but beneath it was a deeper, more urgent confusion. He had just learned this child was not merely his son, but the vasu Dyou, born under a curse. The pieces did not fit.
He called out to his wife, using her other name. "O Jahnavi!" he said. "Who was this Apava? What evil act did the vasus commit that they were all cursed to be born in human wombs? The vasus are lords of all the worlds. Why were they born among men?"
He looked at the boy, his heir, whose qualities already surpassed his own. "And what has this son, Gangadatta, done that he must now live a long life among men? Tell me everything."
Addressed thus by her husband, the bull among men, the divine goddess Jahnavi Ganga prepared to answer. She would tell him the full story, beginning with a visit to a forest and a fateful decision made to please a wife.