Puranic Encyclopaedia: A Comprehensive Dictionary with Special Reference to the Epic and Puranic Literature c9.1472

c9.1472

It was at this time that King Subāhu decided to conduct the Svayaṃvara of his daughter Śaśikalā. Kings from all lands came. Śaśikalā told her mother in secret about her desire to marry Sudarśana, and the mother in turn told about this to the father. But, he was not for it. Then Śaśikalā sent a messenger secretly to Sudarśana to request him to be present at the Svayaṃvara, and Sudarśana and his mother started for the palace of the King of Kāśī and when they reached it, kings like Yudhājit had already come there. A rumour was spread that Subāhu, insulting ignoring all the crowned heads, was going to marry his daughter to Sudarśana, a mere beggar. The assembled Kings, therefore, got themselves ready to pick a row with Subāhu, but, he pacified them with the assurance that the Svayaṃvara of Śaśikalā would formally be conducted and her husband could then be selected by herself. That night Śaśikalā’s parents tried their best to divert her heart away from Sudarśana, to no purpose and the same night she was duly married to him. By the next morning news about the marriage became public and all the Kings, who had come for the Svayaṃvara decided in conference to kill Sudarśana on his way back home with his wife, and abduct Śaśikalā. Accordingly on the fourth day after the wedding when Sudarśana and Śaśikalā were returning to Ayodhyā escorted by the army allotted to them by Subāhu, King Yudhājit and his followers attacked them from their hiding place. In the battle that ensued Devī appeared and helped Sudarśana, who defeated the enemies. People of Ayodhyā received with enthusiasm the victorious Sudarśana and he was crowned their King. In later years he became famous as emperor Sudarśana.