Kripa Who Survived the War

He taught the princes before Drona arrived, fought all eighteen days, told Ashwatthama not to do it, was ignored, went with him anyway, and lived.

Found in the reeds

Kripa was not born in a house.

His father was Sharadvan, son of the sage Gautama, who was born holding arrows and cared about nothing but archery, and whose austerities became severe enough to alarm Indra.

Indra's method of dealing with a dangerous ascetic was routine: he sent an apsara, Janapadi, to break his concentration. It worked to the extent that Sharadvan's seed fell among a clump of reeds, and he left, abandoning both the place and what came of it.

The reeds divided, and there were two infants in them, a boy and a girl.

Shantanu, king of Hastinapura, was hunting and found them, and took them home out of pity.

The Sanskrit for that pity is kripa, and he named them for it: Kripa and Kripi. Their names are a record of the emotion of the stranger who picked them up.