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To
reclaim him, and to carry, on the normal business of the state, the
ministers prevailed upon him to marry another. They pleaded time and
again: "Company keeps one gay and makes the misery go.
Partnership relieves boredom and revives interest and more so with a
lovely and lively young one. Nearness to the devoted mitigates the
agony. Consolation flows between them and allows sweetness spring up
in their hearts". Asoka nodded his head, in answer to their
powerful persuasion. Soon, an alliance was fixed and solemnization
completed. The void was atlast filled up.
Asoka
was coupled with Tishyarakshita, an immature young woman. The match
could be likened to the union of the 'Dusk' with the 'Dawn'. For,
she was frivolous and amorous, dissolute and depraved, lustful and
spiteful, besides lowly and beastly. She was hopelessly unworthy of
being a Queen, more so of Asoka, for that matter. She was unfit,
even to enter the portals of the Maurya Palace.
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