Vyasa

Traditional author of the Mahabharata (and so of the Bhagavad Gita embedded within it), the eighteen Puranas, and compiler of the four Vedas — Hindu tradition treats him as a sage at the origin of Sanskrit scripture. The name itself means 'compiler' or 'arranger' (from the root vyas-, to divide). Modern scholarship reads 'Vyasa' as a tradition or function rather than a single historical author: the works ascribed to him were composed and revised by many hands across centuries. The mythological Vyasa is also a character inside the Mahabharata — biological grandfather of both the Pandavas and Kauravas, occasional intervener in the plot, and (in the framing story) the poet who dictates the entire epic to the elephant-headed god Ganesha as scribe.