to look for it. Vâsuki lit a light and brought it to him without even the slightest consciousness of the unreasonableness of the request. The sage had received the Poet's answer : married life is the best even for scholars and searchers after truth if they can find a wife like Vâsuki; otherwise they had better continue single all their life.
The verse that is said to have escaped the lips of our Poet on the death of her who was the helpmate of his peaceful domestic life, is of a pathetic interest :
O loving one ! O thou who usedst to cook delicious dishes for me and who hast never disobeyed me ! who wouldst chafe my feet at night and sleep after I had slept and wake before I had waked! Art thou going away from me now, O artless one ? When shall these eyes know sleep again?
These are about all the things that have come down to us regarding the life of one of the greatest geniuses of the world.
THE KURAL
Now as regards the work of the Master. It
