The name, Ved Vyas is actually not the name of a single person; it is in fact a title. The author of the Mahabharata, V Vyas, is called as `Ved Vyas` because he was the person who classified the Vedas into four different branches and he had hermitage in Bad. For this, he was also known as `Badarayana`. The myths say that Ved Vyas grew into manhood very shortly after his birth and he was very well versed in the `Vedas`, the `Shastras`, the `Puranas`, poetry, history and also in the other branches of learning.

Ved Vyas was always ripe in wisdom and he left his home to go to Badari for his tapasya, at a very young age. He went to his mother Satyawati in the forest for spending the last days of her life there, in a later period. The most important and significant contribution of Ved Vyas is that it was he, who introduced the very popular mythological characters like the Kauravas, the Pandavas, to the Indian people. It was impossible without him to have a great religious war like the `Kurukshetra` War or the Mahabharata story, either.

Vyas had the full credit of giving the story of Mahabharata to the mankind and people believe that it was Lord Brahma who motivated him to write the story of the Mahabharata with the help of Lord Ganesha. He witnessed the rise of quite a large number of powerful kings and dynasties during his time and as he was such a `Rishi` who had the power of being alive for hundreds of year, the popular beliefs say that he is still living in Badri.`