The Princess and her Suitor

Betaal Pachisi is a collection of stories where King Vikramaditya was assigned the task of bringing a Vetala or a corpse, from a tree.

Thereafter, the Vetala told king Vikramaditya a story. And at the end of the story the Vetala would ask a question from the king. 

If the king successfully answered the question, the spell binding the Vetala to the corpse would break and the Vetala would fly back to the tree.

No matter how much the king did not want to answer the question, the stories narrated by Vetala were so interesting that the king was unable to stop himself from answering the questions of the Vetela.

One of the stories that Vetala narrated to king Vikramaditya was that of the princess and her suitor.

Long ago in a powerful kingdom there were a Royal couple. The couple had a daughter. The daughter was beautiful and she had learnt sword fighting from her father at a very young age. She was so interested in Learning how to fight with swords that she learnt different techniques from all the people in the kingdom and beyond it too. 

Soon the princess became very  proficient in wielding a sword.

Soon when the princess came of marriageable age her father asked her whom she wanted to marry. 

The princess said that she would marry a man who could defeat her in sword fighting.

Throngs of kings and princesses from the neighbouring kingdom came to fight with the princess. But the princess was so good that no one could defeat her. 

During all the times that she fought the Prince and kings, invariably a commoner saw the fight. 

The commoner observed the princess and her fighting techniques and soon learnt it well just by observation skills. 

The kings and princesses had failed to defeat the princess. 

The commoner fought with the princess and with great effort he was able to defeat her. 

However the princess and the commoner both refused to marry each other.

The Vetala wanted the king to answer on why the princess and the man who had defeated her would not marry each other.

King Vikramaditya naturally knew the answer to the question.

According to the king, the princess was a Guru for the commoner. The commoner had learnt all his sword fighting techniques by observing the princess. And it was forbidden to marry a guru. 

Both the princess and the commoner knew how the commoner learnt to wield the sword and that was the reason they had both refused to marry each other. 

Naturally on hearing the right answer the Vetala flew back to the tree

From the Betaal Pachisi