At a glance
- Name & meaning: Parashara (पराशर). The Mahabharata explains the name as “one who brings back the one who was about to die”, because his birth stopped his grandfather Vasishtha from ending his own life.
- Other names: Shaktya or Shaktreya (“son of Shakti”), the patronymic used for him as a Vedic seer.
- Category: Maharshi; a Vedic seer, Puranic narrator and lawgiver.
- Father: The sage Shakti (Shaktri), eldest son of Vasishtha.
- Mother: Adrishyanti.
- Children: Krishna Dvaipayana Vyasa, born to Satyavati.
- Disciples: Maitreya, to whom he narrates the Vishnu Purana.
- Lineage: Vasishtha → Shakti → Parashara → Vyasa. Parashara is also counted as a gotra of its own.
- Era: Named as a seer in the first book of the Rigveda and placed in the generation before the Mahabharata war. No historical date is possible.
- Major texts: Rigveda 1.65–73 (hymns to Agni); the Vishnu Purana (as narrator); the Parashara Smriti. Jyotisha and agriculture texts also carry his name.
- Best known for: Fathering Vyasa on an island in the Yamuna, and forgiving the rakshasas who killed his father.
Birth and family background
Parashara’s story starts with a death. In the Mahabharata (Adi Parva, Chaitraratha section), his father Shakti quarrelled with King Kalmashapada on a narrow forest path and cursed him to become a rakshasa. Vishvamitra, Vasishtha’s great rival, saw his chance and had a rakshasa named Kinkara enter the king’s body. The possessed king devoured Shakti, and then Vasishtha’s other sons too.
Vasishtha, overwhelmed by grief, tried again and again to end his life. He threw himself from a mountain, into fire and into rivers, and each time he survived. As he was going back to his ashram, he heard someone behind him reciting the Vedas with every grace of pronunciation, in a voice like Shakti’s. It was his widowed daughter-in-law Adrishyanti. She told him that the voice came from the child in her womb, Shakti’s son, who had been reciting the Vedas there for twelve years. Vasishtha gave up the thought of dying. When the boy was born, he was named Parashara for exactly this reason: he had brought his grandfather back from death.
Life and key episodes
“That is not your father”
Parashara grew up calling Vasishtha “father”. One day, hearing it, his mother told him through her tears that this was his grandfather, and that his own father had been eaten by a rakshasa in the forest. The child’s grief turned into rage, and he resolved to destroy the whole of creation. Vasishtha calmed him by telling the story of Aurva, a sage of the Bhrigu line whose anger had once threatened the worlds and who had cast it into the ocean instead.
The sacrifice to burn the rakshasas, and Pulastya’s boon
Parashara gave up destroying the worlds but began a great sacrifice to burn all rakshasas, young and old. In the Mahabharata, Vasishtha does not stop him. Instead the sages Atri, Pulaha, Kratu and above all Pulastya, the ancestor of the rakshasas, come to plead with him. Pulastya points out that the rakshasas he is burning knew nothing of his father’s death, and that peace is the highest virtue for an ascetic. Parashara ends the sacrifice and casts its fire into the forests north of the Himalaya.
The Vishnu Purana (1.1) tells the same scene from Parashara’s own mouth, with one change: here it is Vasishtha who tells him that “the pious are made of forgiveness” and asks him to stop. Then Pulastya appears and, pleased that Parashara spared his descendants, gives him a boon: he will become the author of the Purana compendium and know the gods as they really are. That boon is why, when his disciple Maitreya asks how the world came to be, Parashara can recite the Vishnu Purana.
Satyavati and the island in the Yamuna
The best-known episode of his life is in Adi Parva 63. Satyavati, the foster-daughter of a fisherman chief, ferried people across the Yamuna. Because she had been raised among fishermen, she carried a fishy smell. Parashara, on his travels, saw her and desired her. She objected that the rishis on both banks would see them, so he created a fog that covered the whole river. She then objected that she was an unmarried girl in her father’s care. Parashara promised that she would remain a virgin, and granted her the boon she asked for: that her body would carry a sweet fragrance instead. From then on she was known as Gandhavati, and as Yojanagandha, because her scent carried for a yojana.
That same day, on an island in the Yamuna, she gave birth to their son. Because he was born on an island (dvipa) and was dark (krishna), he was called Krishna Dvaipayana, the sage the world knows as Ved Vyasa. The child left at once to practise austerities, promising to come whenever his mother called. Satyavati later married King Shantanu, and decades later it was her call that brought Vyasa back to continue the Kuru line.
Achievements and contributions
- Vedic seer: Hymns 65 to 73 of the Rigveda’s first book, all addressed to Agni, are attributed to Parashara Shaktya. They are known for their imagery; in one, Agni sits amid the waters breathing like a swan.
- Narrator of the Vishnu Purana: The entire Vishnu Purana is framed as Parashara’s answer to Maitreya. It is one of the oldest and most systematic Puranas, and the source of several stories now told everywhere, including Dhruva, Prahlada and Durvasa’s curse on Indra.
- Lawgiver for the Kali age: The Parashara Smriti gives the rules of dharma for the present age, and it says so of itself.
- Father of Vyasa: Through Vyasa, Parashara stands at the head of the line that produced the Vedas in their four-fold form, the Mahabharata and the Puranas, and the Kuru dynasty itself.
Works connected with him
The Parashara Smriti opens with sages asking Parashara, through Vyasa, for the dharma suited to their age. Its best-known verse assigns a law-book to each yuga:
कृते तु मानवा धर्मास्त्रेतायां गौतमाः स्मृताः ।
द्वापरे शाङ्खलिखिताः कलौ पाराशराः स्मृताः ॥ (1.24)
“In the Krita age the laws of Manu, in the Treta those of Gautama, in the Dvapara those of Shankha and Likhita, and in the Kali age those of Parashara.” The verse just before it says that in the Kali age the chief duty is dana, giving. The text is relatively short and practical, and it is generally milder than older law-books on penances.
The Brihat Parashara Hora Shastra, the foundational text of Vedic astrology for many practitioners, is attributed to him, as are the Krishi Parashara on farming and weather and a Vrikshayurveda on plants. These attributions are traditional. The texts as we have them were compiled much later, and scholars treat the name as an honorific, not a record of authorship.
Why he is revered today
- Every recitation of the Vishnu Purana begins with his words to Maitreya.
- Astrologers in the Vedic tradition call their method Parashari jyotisha and invoke him at the start of study.
- Families of the Parashara gotra name him in their sankalp. In the Vasishtha line he is the link between Vasishtha and Vyasa.
- Parashar Lake in Himachal Pradesh (Mandi district), with its pagoda-style temple, is believed to be where he meditated.
Variant traditions and a historical note
The two main accounts of his early life differ on who stopped the rakshasa sacrifice. The Mahabharata gives the role to Pulastya and the other sages, while in the Vishnu Purana it is Vasishtha, followed by Pulastya’s boon. The Satyavati episode is told consistently, but its tone shifts between retellings. Some later works soften it, and some devotional retellings present it as a divinely arranged union for Vyasa’s birth. The name Parashara is also attached to texts on astrology, law and agriculture from widely different periods. That suggests a school or tradition carrying his name rather than one author. The Rigvedic seer, the Puranic narrator and the father of Vyasa are treated by tradition as one person, and the texts make no distinction between them.
Frequently asked questions
Who were Parashara’s parents?
His father was the sage Shakti, eldest son of Vasishtha, and his mother was Adrishyanti. He was born after his father had been killed.
How is Parashara related to Ved Vyasa?
He is Vyasa’s father. Vyasa was born to Satyavati on an island in the Yamuna, which is why he is called Dvaipayana, the island-born.
What is “Kalau Parasharah smritah”?
It is the end of a verse in the Parashara Smriti (1.24) saying that in the Kali age, Parashara’s laws are the ones to follow.