TALES FROM THE HINDU DRAMATISTS - Awaken Video

Her dress is the contrivance of the minister, at whose instigation,
Mrigankavali is persuaded by Sulakshana to believe that she is to behold
the present deity of love, and is introduced by a sliding door into the
king's chamber. The consequence of the interview is to render
Mrigankavali passionately enamoured of the king.
One day, the queen, in order to deceive Charayana, manages to celebrate
a marriage between him and a son of a maid-servant veiled as a female.
The trick is discovered. He is highly indignant.
He now retaliates with the help of the king. He induces Sulakshana, one
of the female attendants of the queen, to ascend a _Bakula_ tree and
thence send a message in a nasal tone, as if from the sky, to Mekhala,
the foster-sister and chief attendant of the queen.
"Thou shalt die at this spot on the full moon day of _Baisakh_." After
many entreaties, the heavenly voice prescribes a relief, "Thou art safe
if thou canst pass through the legs of a Brahmin skilled in music and
gratified with a fee." Charayana, just the kind of Brahmin required,
arrives at this juncture. The king and the queen are present. Mekhala
and the queen, both overcome with concern, entreat Charayana to be the
Brahmin that shall preserve the life of the former. He consents. As
Mekhala tries to pass between his legs, he mounts on her back and says,
"you are now caught in your turn. You deceived me once. Now marry me."
He triumphs in the humiliation he has inflicted on her. The queen now
perceives the intrigue of the king, is in her turn incensed, goes off in
a pet and resolves to take revenge.
Chandamahasen, the king of Kuntala as a defeated prince now resides with
his daughter Kubalayamala under the protection of the victorious king.
The king sees her one day as she rises after bathing in the Narbadda. He
becomes enamoured of her and wishes to marry her. The queen gets scent
of the matter. To prevent the curse of co-wifeship, the queen now
resolves to get her husband married to the son of her maternal uncle so
that he may be ashamed into abandoning his polygamous tendency.
The king and the Vidushaka seek the garden, where it is now moon-light.
Mrigankavali and her friend Vilakshana also come thither, and the lovers
meet: this interview is broken off by a cry that the queen is coming,
and they all separate abruptly.
At dawn, Charayana's wife is asleep. In her sleep, however, she is very
communicative, and repeats a supposed dialogue between the queen and the
Raja, in which the former urges the latter to marry Mrigankavali, the
sister of the supposed Mrigankavarma, come on a visit, it is pretended,
to her brother--this being a plot of the queen's to cheat the king into
a sham marriage, by espousing him to one she believes to be a boy.
The Vidushaka suspects the trick, however, and wakes his wife, who rises
and goes to the queen. The Vidushaka joins his master. The king, who is
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