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 beings that are oviparous, it is the bird that is taken as the symbol of the soul here as it alone flies away from the shell. The word love is denotative of want of love. As the conscious, immaterial soul, and the dull, material body are the very opposites of each other, know that there can be no attachment between them but what comes of karma.

"Now there are those who would explain kuḍambai as nest. But as its origin is not contemporaneous with that of the bird, and as the bird goes again into it after leaving it, the reader will see that it cannot symbolise the body."

After these two examples it is quite superfluous to expatiate any more to the reader on the great qualities of the commentator. The Tamil people have preserved this commentary with the most religious care. Indeed it as well as the Kural have been among the greatest sources of inspiration to the princes of the Tamil country for a good and just rule and for successful statecraft. Even thirty years ago the Zemindars of the Tamil land were great lovers of the Kural and their children were Rh