A Comprehensive Collection - Swami Vivekananda

90 KARMA-YOGA.of his own territory and passed through many territories,until they came to another kingdom. In, the capital ofthat kingdom a great ceremony was going on. The kifcgand the Sannyasin heard the sound of drums and music, andcriers and the people were assembled in the streets in galadress, and a great proclamation was being made. The kingand the Sannyasin stood there to see what was going on.The crier was saying that the princess, the daughter of theking of that country, was going to choose a husband fromthose assembled before her.amongIt was an old custom in India for princesses to choosehusbands in this way, and apparently each one of them hadcertain ideas of the sort of man she wanted for a husband ;some would have the handsomest man ;others wouldhave only the most learned ;others would have the richest;and so on. The princess, in the most splendid array rwas carried on a throne, and the announcement was madeby criers that the princess so-and-so was about tochoose a husband. Then all the princes of the neighbourhood put on their bravest attire and presented themselvesbefore her. Sometimes they, too, had their own crierstoenumerate their advantages, and the reasons whythey hoped the princess would choose them. The princesswas taken round and looked at them and heard wha,t theyhad to offer, and if she was not pleased she asked herbearers to move on, and no more notice was taken ofthe rejected suitors. If, however, the princess was pleasedwith any one of them, she threw a garland upon himand he became her husband.The princess of the country to which our king and theSannyasin had come was having one of these interesting ceremonies. She was the most beautiful princess of the world,and the husband of the princess would be ruler of the