This is one of my favourite short stories from the Mahabharata... about King Uparichara (Vasu) and his wife Girika. Just the strangest tale ever. So bizarre. My head was spinning after reading it. I got some people I was making music with in manchester a few years ago to act these scenes out, but never put the footage together. And I also acted the whole thing out again with my wife. Again, never got much further than the shooting stage. At various points, I've also made drawings of some of the scenes.
I've taken this Bibek Debroy's recent-ish translation from
https://archive.org/details/DebroyBibekTrMahabharata.Vol.ISections1To15/page/n1
edit: looks like that link I used previously has been taken down, but this one seems to be working
https://archive.org/details/the-mahabharata-set-of-10-volumes (you might be able to use CTRL + F to search "Shuktimati" and find it in context)
but there's also a wikipedia page
en.wikipedia.org
"The river that flowed near his [King Uparichara's] city, Shuktimati, was once attacked by the mountain Kolahola, maddened by lust. The mountain Kolahola was kicked by Vasu with his foot and the river flowed out freely through the gully caused by the kick. From the embrace of the mountain, the river gave birth to twins and, grateful, the river gave them to the king. Vasu, supreme among rajarshis and the provider of prosperity and vanquisher of enemies, made the son the general of his army. The daughter of the river was named Girika and the king made her his wife. Once, the time for intercourse arrived and Vasu’s wife, Girika, having purified herself by bathing at the fertile time, informed her husband about her state. But on that very day, his ancestors came to him and asked the best of kings and wisest of men to kill some deer. Thinking that the command of his ancestors should be followed, he went out to hunt, thinking of Girika, who was exceedingly beautiful and like Shri herself [Shri is a goddess].
He was so excited that the semen was discharged in the beautiful forest and wishing to save it, the king of the earth collected it in the leaf of a tree. The lord thought that his semen should not be wasted in vain and that his wife’s fertile period should not pass barren. Then the king thought about this many times and the best of kings firmly decided that his semen would be productive, since the semen was issued when his queen’s time was right. Learned in the subtleties of dharma and artha [dharma is roughly 'duty'; artha is roughly 'meaning'], the king consecrated the semen, which was productive for producing progeny, and addressed a hawk that was seated nearby.
‘O amiable one! Please take this seed to my wife Girika. She is in her season now.’ The swift hawk took it from him and flew speedily through the sky.
When the bird was thus swiftly flying through the sky, another hawk saw him and thought that the hawk was carrying some meat and flew at him. The two birds fought with their beaks in the sky. When they were thus fighting, the semen fell into the waters of the river Yamuna. An apsara [female spirit of the clouds and waters] known by the name of Adrika lived in the water of the Yamuna as a fish, because she had been cursed by Brahma. In the form of a fish, Adrika speedily came to where Vasu’s semen fell from the hawk’s claw and swallowed it up immediately.
O best of the Bharata lineage! Some time after this, the fish was caught by fishermen and she was in her tenth month. From the stomach of the fish there emerged twins in human form, a boy and a girl. They marvelled at this and went and told the king, ‘O king! These two have been born in human form inside a fish.’
Then King Uparichara accepted the male child and he later became the righteous and truthful king named Matsya. As soon as the children were born, the apsara was also immediately freed from her curse. The beautiful one had earlier been told by the illustrious god' that she would be freed from her non-human form when she gave birth to two human children. Following these words, after giving birth to two children and after being killed by the fishermen, she left the form of a fish and assumed her own divine form. The beautiful apsara then went up to the sky, following the path of the siddhis, rishis and charancis [heavenly tribes]. The girl, the daughter of the fish, smelt of fish. She was given by the king to the fishermen, saying that she would be their daughter."
I only got to about book 3 of the Mahabharata - even Bibek Debroy prefaced some of the chapters by saying they were basically almost word for word repetitions of previous chapters. I got into it cos I've always been obsessed with the story of "Karna" and for years wanted to make it into a film.