Parāśara
Seers of the Epics and Purāṇas · Ṛṣis and Ṛṣikās
Vasiṣṭha's grandson, who recited the Veda in the womb and called his grandfather back from death, burned the rākṣasas until he was asked to stop, fathered Vyāsa, and told the Viṣṇu Purāṇa to Maitreya.
Parāśara was the son of Śakti and grandson of Vasiṣṭha. He recited the Veda in his mother's womb, and his voice called his grief-stricken grandfather back from death. When he learned that his father had been eaten by a rākṣasa, one of the demons who feed on men, he resolved to destroy the worlds, and Vasiṣṭha turned him from it with the story of Aurva. He burned the rākṣasas in a great sacrifice until Pulastya asked him to stop, and he stopped. On the Yamunā he met the ferry girl Satyavatī, and their son was Vyāsa, who divided the one Veda into four and made the Mahābhārata. And it is Parāśara who tells the whole Viṣṇu Purāṇa, the long book of the god Viṣṇu and of how the world is made and comes to its end, to his pupil Maitreya.