Satyavatī was shocked. “How can one who is blind become a king of the Kuru race?” she asked.
Vyāsadeva explained that he had gone to Ambikā prepared to beget a son worthy in every way, but the queen had closed her eyes in fear when she saw him. When agreeing to produce an heir to the throne, the sage had stipulated that the queen must accept him in his unpleasant condition. Satyavatī had summoned him from the Himālayas and he had come to her directly from his practice of harsh asceticism. He kept himself unwashed and unkempt as a part of his ascetic vows. He said, “I would have come to the queen in a handsome form decked with jewels if she had first accepted a religious vow for one full year. But you asked that she conceive immediately. Therefore I stated my conditions in place of the religious vow.”
Satyavatī cursed herself for her impatience. She had not wanted to wait. Without an heir to the throne the kingdom was in constant danger. In a land without a monarch even the rains would not fall regularly and the gods would not be propitious. Therefore she had begged Vyāsadeva to approach the queen at once. Now this! A blind son.
