Shantanu and Ganga
Shantanu saw a beautiful woman on the banks of the river Ganges (Ganga) and asked her to marry him. She agreed but with one condition: that Shantanu would not ask any questions about her actions. They married and she later gave birth to a son. But she drowned the child. Shantanu could not ask her the reason, because of his promise, lest she would leave him. One by one, seven sons were born to them, and were drowned by Ganga. When Ganga was about to drown the eighth son, Shantanu, devastated, could not restrain himself and confronted her. She explained that she was in fact the Goddess Ganga, and that the infants she had drowned were demi-gods who had been cursed to be born as humans. She had been freeing them from their curse. Since Ganga revealed the truth to Shantanu, she could not free the last demi-god. So she left the baby boy in Shantanu's care and went back to the river. The baby boy was named Devavrata, and eventually came to be known as the mighty warrior Bhishma.
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