He is also known as Krishna Dvaipayana. Around 5000 years ago, he was born in Damauli of Tanahi district in Nepal. His father was Parashar Rishi, a sage & his mother was Satyavati. Ved Vyas was the first and greatest acharya of Sanatan Dharma. He is responsible for classifying the four Vedas, the 18 Puranas, and had recited the great Mahabharata. Mahabharata is the 18th Puran that was written by Ved Vyas. The ancient cave that he wrote Mahabharata in still exists in Nepal. Apart from the Mahabharata, he also wrote the Brahmasootra, one of his shortest theologies on Hindu philosophy. It is said that Ved Vyas is immortal & he never died. He fathered four famous sons, Pandu, Dhritarashtra, Vidur, and Sukhdev. Ved Vyas received knowledge from great sages like Vasudeva and Sanakadik.
Maharishi Ved Vyas is considered a part-incarnation of Lord Vishnu. It is said that he came to the earth in Dwaparyug to put all the Vedic knowledge in this universe in the form of written words and make it available to everyone. Before Ved Vyasa, Vedic knowledge only existed in the form of spoken words. He was the grandfather to Pandavas and Kauravas. He is called Ved Vyasa because he had split the original version of Vedas into four parts; Ved Vyasa means 'the splitter of Vedas'. He had split the Vedas, so it became easy for people to understand it. This is how divine knowledge was made available to everyone.
It is said that Ved Vyasa asked Lord Ganesha himself to help him in the compilation of Mahabharata. But Ganesha had one condition, that he would narrate it to him without a single pause. To supersede this condition, Vyasa put another condition on him to understand the verses even before he has recited them. This is how Mahabharata had written, & Ved Vyasa also narrated all the Upanishads and 18 Puranas continuously to Lord Ganesha.
