Hindu Students Association : Mahabharata Meeting

Hindu Students Association : Mahabharata Meeting: Our last meeting was about the Mahabharata, the presenters came up with an abridged version of the important events.  The story of Mahabharata goes back to the era of king Shantanu of Hastinapura, who married Ganga, the holy river and had as their 8th son, Devavrata, who was later on known as Bheeshma. Ganga had flown away her and Shantanu's 7 other sons into the river because they were the Vasus who were cursed. Ganga was freeing them from that curse. But Shantanu stopped her while she was going to do the same with Devavrata and so she couldn't free the 8th child from the curse and subsequently left Shantanu. When Devavrata was 16 years old and trained in arms and letters, Ganga returned him to Shantanu and Devavrata was crowned as the prince. But later on when Shantanu fell in love with Satyavati, the daughter of a fisherman, who wanted Satyavati's sons to rule the throne, it was Devavrata, who, for the sake of his father's pleasures, sacrificed his own and took the following vows (in order for Satyavati's future sons to inherit the throne):
1) He would give up his claim to the throne
2) He would stay celibate all his life (so that he doesn't have any claimants to the throne later on)
3) He would see his father's image in whoever inherits the throne and act as a regent to him to ensure that Hastinapura is safe in his hands

In return of this, Shantanu gave him the boon that he will live as long as he wished and die only when he wished. From then, on Devavrata became known as Bheeshma, because of the terrible oath he had taken. Satyavati gave birth to Chitrangada and Vichitraveeriya. Chitrangada was crowned as the king after Shantanu, but was killed soon after in a battle. He was succeeded by his younger brother Vichitraveeriya, but he was impotent and he too didn't live long. So, Satyavati called upon Maharishi Ved Vyas, who was the author of Mahabharata and also Satyavati's son from Maharishi Parashar (before Satyavati was married to Shantanu), to take the charge of giving heirs to Kuru vamsa and Dhritarashtra, Pandu and Vidur were his sons respectively with Vichitraveeriya's wives Ambika, Ambalika and one of their maid-servants. Bheeshma's characterin Mahabharata is of a pivotal and crucial importance and also he was a very illustrious character in the whole epic