The queen of the Kuru king Shantanu of Hastinapur and great grandmother of the Pandava and Kaurava princes, main characters in the Mahabharata. She is the mother of the seer Vyasa, author of the Mahabharata. She is the daughter of the Chedi king Vasu but is also a cursed celestial nymph named ADRIKA who is born from the belly of a fish. She was brought up by a commoner, a fisherman and Yamuna ferryman named Dusharaj. At ths stage she was known as MATSYAGANDHA ('she who smells of fish'). A sage called Parashara sired Vyasa on her and gave her a seductive musky fragrance, so henceforth she was known as YOJANAGANDHA or GANDAVATI, both epithets essentially meaning 'fragrant one'. Satyavati means 'truth'. In Indonesia she is known as Setyawati
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