Skandapurana 5.195

Sūta said: / Then, beholding his own daughter endowed with youth, / blessed with matchless beauty, a woman of exquisite complexion, / Ānarta reflected: 'To whom shall I give this maiden?

Whoever gives his own maiden to an unworthy bridegroom, / out of greed for some purpose or motive, goes straight to hell.

While he was reflecting thus, a long time passed, / and he did not see any peerless bridegroom worthy of her.

Then he dispatched painters famous for their skill in painting, / men who resided in all kinds of dwellings.

'Go at my command and, having painted all the kings / on the face of the earth upon canvases, show them then

to my daughter, so that, seeing the ruler of men she desires, / that virtuous girl may choose him for her husband; thus no fault shall be mine.'

Hearing those words of his, all the painters then / departed across the surface of the earth and into the palaces of kings.

Having depicted rulers in the bloom of their youth, endowed with noble age, / endowed with beauty, generosity, and virtues, they presented them before / Ratnavatī in due order, in accordance with that king's command.

Then, from among them all, King Bṛhadbala, / the handsome ruler of Daśārṇa, was chosen by her as her husband.

Thereupon the ruler of Ānarta, delighted, having fully understood, / sent [messengers] to him for the marriage and spoke these words:

'Go at my command to the ruler of Daśārṇa; / having approached with humility, he is to be addressed: 'For the marriage, come into my presence,

so that I may bestow upon you my own daughter, / renowned by the name Ratnavatī, the beauty even of the three worlds.''

Having gone quickly thither, where King Bṛhadbala was, / [the messenger] clearly declared the entire speech of the lord of Ānarta.

He too, immediately hearing their excellent words, / attained the highest satisfaction and set forth toward that city, / that king accompanied by a vast fourfold army.

Thus ends the one hundred and ninety-sixth chapter, titled 'Description of the Arrival of Bṛhadbala, the Ruler of Daśārṇa, at the City of the Lord of Ānarta', in the Māhātmya of the Sacred Field of Hāṭakeśvara, in the Nāgarakhaṇḍa, the sixth [part] of the eighty-one-thousand-verse collection of the glorious and great Skandapurāṇa.