The great Sage, Parashara, was the grandson of Rishi Vasishtha. He was well-known as the wandering sage since he would never stay in any place for too long. Rishi Parashara was a great scholar and well accomplished in several fields. He is remembered as one of the founding fathers of the science of Indian Astrology. Parashara authored the ‘Brihat Parashara Hora Shastram’, one of the foremost and comprehensive guide in Vedic Astrology and is referred to by students of this subject even today. Sage Parashara was highly accomplished in the field of Astrology that he could give a prediction, merely by looking at sky & the position of the planets and nakshatras. So the story goes of the birth of Veda Vyasa….
Once upon a time, during one of his various wanderings, Sage Parashara arrived at the Banks of the Yamuna. Since it was about the time for dusk, he glanced around to find someone ferry him across the river. Finding no one, he approached a lonely fisher-woman, called Satyawati, who gladly accepted to help the sage cross the Yamuna. She paid her reverence to the great sage and arranged a small boat for their journey across. When they reached the middle of the river, Sage Parashara happened to have a fleeting look at the sky. With his vast knowledge of astrology, he was amazed at what he saw. He knew instantly that the position of the stars at that moment was unique and that anyone born at that time was bound to be an illustrious scholar and would be an remembered for several Yugas to come. But the conception had to be at that instant, for he knew well that the positions will change very quickly.
Banks of the Yamuna
He proposed to Satyawati and revealed his wish to conceive a child who would be a famed personality for yugas to come. However, they could not miss this only one of its kind astronomical arrangement of the stars. The story goes that Satyawati and Sage Parashara together conceived the child, who was named “Krishna” at birth. Krishna would go on to be named as the famous ‘Vyasa’, one of the biggest scholars of the Vedas.
Sage Vyasa not only studied and understood the Vedas, he classified and categorized them into four distinct works. Vyasa compiled all the verbal knowledge available at that time and wrote them into books. He is also the author of the great epic, the Mahabharata and is venerated even today as ‘Veda Vyasa’.