Satyavati Recounts Her Past and Vyasa's Birth
To justify summoning Vyasa, Satyavati must explain who he is. She tells Bhishma the story of her youth: how the sage Parashara came to her boat, enveloped the world in fog, and with her consent, fathered Vyasa, granting her boons including a divine fragrance and her virginity restored.
To convince Bhishma that her proposed solution was not only lawful but ideal, Satyavati had to tell a story she had kept hidden for years. She spoke in a voice that was both smiling and bashful.
She began with her father, a righteous man who maintained a boat for the sake of dharma. In the prime of her youth, she once plied that boat. The supreme rishi Parashara, greatest among those who know dharma, came to the boat because he wanted to cross the Yamuna.
"When I was taking him across the river, the best of sages felt desire for me," she said. "He approached me and pacified me in gentle words." She was scared — scared of his curse, and frightened of her father. She could not refuse him. Therefore, she did the only thing she could: she obtained a boon from him, one that was difficult to get.
"O descendant of the Bharata lineage! I was a young girl and he overcame me with his energy in the boat. But he enveloped the world with a dense fog."
He also transformed her. Earlier, a foul smell of fish used to come from her body — the mark of her fisherman lineage. The sage removed that and gave her a divine fragrance, the sweet scent of musk that had first drawn Shantanu to her years later.
Then the sage told her that once she had delivered her son on an island in the river, she would once again become a virgin.
Thus was born the great rishi famous as Dvaipayana, Parashara’s son. He was a great yogi, born to her while she was still technically a virgin. That illustrious rishi had used the power of his austerities to divide the Vedas into four parts. He was known in all the worlds as Vyasa. Because he was dark, he was also known as Krishna. He was always devoted to the truth, had destroyed his sins, and was an ascetic free from all passion.
This was the man she proposed to summon. This was her secret son, a being of immense spiritual power, the only one she could ask to perform the niyoga for her dead son Vichitravirya. She presented him not as a secret shame, but as their dynasty's miraculous hope.