Week 6 Story Planning: The Love Story of King Shantanu and Satayavati

Public Domain Edition of Mahabharata by Arnold, Besant, Devee, Dutt, Ganguli, Kincaid, Macfie, Mackenzie, Nivedita, Seeger, and Tagore.

I started my story planning by doing some research separately on King Shantanu and Satyavati. I found some interesting Wikipedia articles that contained general background information on both of these characters. The first article is helpful because it follows the chronological order of the Mahabharata text and there is a portion about Ganga, King Shantanu's wife, who abandoned him. Devavrata is described in this article too, which may be useful if I go on to tell the story about how he does not became the next in line for Shantanu's throne. There's an information-filled website on the history of Indian mythology and more about Satyavati. I also browsed Youtube and found a video narrating Satyavati’s birth from the river.

When I took more detailed notes this time around, I focused on Satyavati's birth. King Chedi's semen falls into the river, which a fish swallows. It's surprising that the Mahabharata text contains no information about this fish, other than she gave birth to Satyavati. The only think I could find about her was her name: Adrika. I could compose a story around more about her, such as if she was a god in disguise or something of that sort. As I was reading the part when Satyavati was born human from a fish, I thought of mermaids, so a fun retelling would be that Satyavati is born as a mermaid. To add on to this, King Chedi refuses to wed her because she is not human.

I find it fascinating that Satyavati had a strange fishy smell that she tried to get rid of. I researched more about the significance of smell in the Mahabarata and found this book, Sandalwood and Carrion: Smell in Indian Religion and Culture. I could also retell the story on how Satyavati is so self-conscious about her fishy stench that she thinks King Shantanu doesn't marry her because he is secretly disgusted.
The beauteous Satyavati rowing the ferryboat. Source: Wikipedia.

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