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Mrgavati
PURAN CHAND SAMSUKHA
Today all Kausambi is cheerless. King Satanika is laid up with a serious illness. The chief medical men of the kingdom have gathered together to save the king from the attack of a severe diarrhoea, but instead of diminishing, the disease is steadily on the increase. The queen-consort, Mrgavati, is always by the bed-side of her husband, nursing him ; but all is in vain. The dismal shadow of death gradually deepens over the king's face.
One day, all of a sudden, the prime minister comes to the king's sick bed with a gloomy face and a letter in his hand. Pradyota, the king of Ujjain, has sent a letter to the effect that Satanika cannot be a worthy husband of the extraordinarily beautiful Mrgavati, it is Pradyota alone who is worthy of her ; therefore, Mrgavati must be sent to Pradyota immediately on receipt of this letter, otherwise he will invade Kausambi with his army and carry away Mrgavati by force. The prime minister gives the further news that the fiendish Pradyota has already started on the expedition with his army soon after despatching the letter.
At any other time, king Satanika would have certainly prepared for a fight, but for the moment that is impossible. Today he is an invalid. Finding no other way he instructs the prime minister to write to Pradyota that the relation between the two kings has always been friendly and that it is immoral and irreligious to cast an eye of lust on another's wife. He further instructs the minister that he should refer, in his letter, to ethical principles and make an earnest appeal to Pradyota not to embark upon a military expedition at this time. But all of them knew that it was useless to send such a letter to Pradyota, who was hardly likely to desist. It is, indeed, for his lustful desire for other's wives and his habitual excitement over battle that he was known as Pradyota, the Black-hearted.
On receipt of Pradyota's letter the king becomes more worried and despondent. Mrgavati, who has a sharp intelligence, perceives the state of his mind and says to him,
“My lord, do not be worried. I am a ksatriya girl of the Haihaya clan and the queen of a powerful ksatriya like you. If Pradyota at all invades our city, he will have only my corpse ; my soul will go to my lord alone."
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