One day, King Shantanu stumbles upon two abandoned babies on the forest floor: a boy and a girl. He adopts them, names them Kripa and Kripi, and raises them. They are children of a tapasvi (fire-ascetic) named Saradvan and an apsara (water-nymph) named Janapadi. Mahabharata thus informs us of children abandoned by both father and mother but adopted by a single man. Kripa later becomes a renowned martial arts teacher, of the Kuru princes, while Kripi marries Drona, another martial arts master.

Mahabharata is the first epic to tell stories of the conflict between tapasvis and apsaras. The men abandon homes and live in the forest, shunning contact with all forms of pleasure, including women. The retained semen, following strict yogic practices, transforms into an inner fire (tapa) that grants these men magical powers (siddhi) with which they can change shape and size and even fly or walk on water. This makes Indra, king of gods, nervous. He fears they will topple him, so he sends the apsara to seduce them. Proof of her success is the production of a child. The semen is thus bound to earth through the child not raised up the spine to grant spiritual powers.