Vyasa

Vyasa is a rishi, or sage, with a prominent role in most Hindu traditions, also known as Veda Vyasa and as Krishna Dvaipayana. Tradition regards him as the author of the epic Mahabharata, in which he also appears as a character, as the compiler of the mantras of the Vedas into four texts, and as the author of the eighteen Puranas and the Brahma Sutras. The Indian tradition attributes the Bhagavad Gita, which sits inside the Mahabharata, to him, although the Gita is historiographically regarded as a composite work by multiple authors, and scholars consider Vyasa a mythical or symbolic author, in part because Vyasa is also a title for the compiler of a text.