Satyavathi and Niyog

Ved Vyas was born through Niyog for Satyavathi before marriage. Why did she use it when she married Santanu and got two sons from him? Confused😕

Originally posted by: lovesunshine

no she did not do a niyog to conceive ved vyass. just that before her relationship with king shantanu, rishi parashar was lusted by satyavati's beauty and he wanted to have a physical relationship with her. She agreed to it and ved vyaas was born through the union.

Originally posted by: Shaya_123

Thanks for clarifying 😊 but niyog was used only when husband has some problem and cant get a child. In this case she was not even married to Shantanu. Then how Ved Vyasa became his son?

Originally posted by: ...SaRun...

@ lovsunshine thanks foe clearing it.

@Shaya another confusion 😕.Why they are not showing these things in the show?

Originally posted by: A-A-S

Hi,

I think there might still be some confusion here. I hope this is helpful.

Ved Vyas is the eldest son of Satyavati and his father is Rishi Parashar. Satyavati and Parashar were never married but they united physically, leading to Ved Vyas's birth. This was before Satyavati met King Shantanu. There was no niyog involved here and Ved Vyas is not considered to be Shantanu's son.

Niyog is the name of the practice when a Rishi/other man (someone other than the lady in question's husband) is asked to father a child with a lady because the lady's husband cannot have children, either because he is infertile, has health problems or is dead. The children born of the lady and the Rishi/other man are considered to be the children of the lady's husband (you can think of the Rishi as being a sperm donor for the married couple).

So in Mahabharat (as shown in this show), Satyavati made her widowed daughters-in-law Ambika and Ambalika undertake niyog with Rishi Ved Vyas (who just so happens to be Satyavati's son) because their husband Vichitravirya was dead and they had no children, i.e. the royal family had no heirs. So Ambika's and Ambalika's sons were in this way considered to be sons of Vichitravirya (because their mothers were his wives) and thus the heirs to the throne of Hastinapur.

They didn't show/explain this in the show, but Dhritrashtra was born blind because Ambika was frightened when she saw Ved Vyas and closed her eyes, which affected the baby she then conceived. Ambalika was also frightened and turned pale, which resulted in her baby Pandu being pale and of ill-health. Satyavati asked for them to try niyog again a third time so that they could also have another healthy son but the frightened Ambika/Ambalika sent a servant lady instead of one of them. This servant lady was not frightened and her son, Vidur, was born healthy. So Dhritrashtra, Pandu and Vidur are all half-brothers and grandsons of Satyavati. But while Dhritrashtra and Pandu were considered heirs to the throne of Hastinapura, their younger brother Vidur was not considered so because he was the son of a servant lady and not the son of a royal daughter-in-law/Queen.

As to why they don't show this stuff in the show, they probably want to get to the Pandavas and Kauravas as quickly as possible so they are leaving out things like this. 😊 I think they really should have explained all this so that people who are not familiar with the story wouldn't get confused! It wouldn't have taken longer than a few minutes!!!

EDIT: Thanks to Nandini for sharing this about the story of the birth of Dhritrashtra, Pandu and Vidur: https://www.indiaforums.com/forum/topic/3754070