Vasuki Saint Tiruvalluvar lived with his wife, Vasuki, in what is today a part of Chennai in South India. Vasuki was the perfect example of simple devotion and traditional intelligent cooperation with her husband, and several stories, handed down in the oral tradition from generation to generation, are told depicting the marvel of the harmony in their marriage. We cannot know for certain that these stories contain only the facts of those days long ago, but they do show us what Tamil village life was like two thousand years ago and what was considered to be the ideal home and the ideal householder.

Legends say that Vasuki was the daughter of Margasahayam, an affluent farmer of the region who was impressed with Valluvar's right living and lofty thinking and proposed his young daughter's hand in marriage. When the proposal was brought to Valluvar, he agreed, provided his betrothed passed a small test. Tests were common in his culture--a man testing his prospective wife, a guru testing a candidate for initiation, a common man testing a friend before opening his heart and home. When they first met, Valluvar made this request to Vasuki: to take a handful of sand and boil it into rice for him. The girl took the sand without the slightest resistance and, in perfect faith that this holy person's wishes would manifest, proceeded to prepare the requested me al. Miraculously, the sand turned to savory rice, which she served her husband-to-be. Right then, it is said, the poet took Vasuki to be his wife.

As the marriage grew stronger and deeper, villagers began to admire the relationship. Many would come to Vall uvar to ask his opinion about marriage, about household life, about the relationships between men and women. On one occasion a neighbor came to the weaver's home and asked, "Some say the path of the ascetic monk is the highest. Others say no, it is that o f the householder which holds most merit. What do you think?" Without giving a direct answer to the query, Valluvar invited the man to stay a few days in his home as a guest. A few mornings later Vasuki was drawing water at the family well just outside. Such wells, called kineru, are made so that a long wooden pole holds at one end a wooden bucket suspended on a long rope and at the other a counterweight of stones. The empty bucket is let down to the water in the open well and then the counterweight helps lift the water to the top. As the bucket reached above the above-ground level, Vasuki's husband loudly called for her to come to his side. She came instantly, abandoning the task and rushing to her beloved. The guest was astonished, not only at her responsi v eness, but at a small miracle he had witnessed. As the story goes, when Vasuki left the well at once at her husband's calling, the bucket was in mid air, filled with water. Instead of falling back into the well, it remained suspended in the same position, apparently defying the law of gravity, until she returned to her wifely chore.

On another morning, Valluvar and his guest were seated together for breakfast, which consisted of plain cold rice from the day before. This was a typical South Indian breakfast , since there was no refrigeration to keep food. Frugality was an important discipline for survival. Suddenly, the weaver said to his wife, "This rice is too hot to eat. It is burning my fingers!" Vasuki swiftly grabbed a fan and began fanning the cold rice, which had been served on a banana leaf. Wonder of wonders, steam rose from the rice as she sought to cool it.

On yet another day as Valluvar was diligently plying his handloom, he accidentally dropped a shuttle to the floor. Though it was midday and the sun shone brightly, the weaver, apparently deep in thought, called to his wife to bring a lamp so he might look for the lost shuttle. Vasuki quickly lit the oil lamp and brought it to her husband without the slightest consciousness of the unreasonablene ss of her husband's request.

The guest left the home soon thereafter, having witnessed all this. No direct answer was ever given to the original question, but the moral of the story is that the visitor had seen with his own eyes a most marvelous marriage p artnership and learned Valluvar's unspoken message, that a man whose wife is equal to Vasuki would best follow the householder path, though without such a wife the ascetic's path is preferred: "If a man masters the duties of married life, what further mer its could monkhood offer him?"

Valluvar and Vasuki lived a peaceful, loving life, and apparently had children to delight them and family in great numbers to offer support and affection in their later years. As Vasuki was about to die, her husband asked if there was anything he could do for her. "Yes, dear husband," came her faint reply. "All our wedded life I have had a question which you could answer. From the first day of our marriage, I have been placing a small cup of fresh water and a needle beside you at every meal. May I know, my Lord, why you bid me to do this?"

Valluvar replied, "Dearest wife, I wanted the water and needle nearby so that, if you spilled any rice while serving me, I would be able to pick it up with the needle and rinse it with the w ater. However, as you never dropped a single grain in all those years, there was never an occasion to put these things to use." Her question answered, Vasuki breathed her last. The story idealizes the wifely attitude of never questioning her husband, and shows how perfectly Vasuki carried out her duties, not once in all their life dropping so much as a single grain of rice!

Valluvar cremated Vasuki as tradition dictated, then returned home to write a poem to her: "O, my beloved, who is sweeter than my daily food. O my darling, who has never once disobeyed me. O gentle one, who rubbing my feet, would go to bed after me and rise before, are you gone? How can slumber ever come again to my unslumbering eyes?"

The Tamil understanding of the husband-and-wife rel ationship is vastly different from modern thinking, which stresses sameness and equality. Yet, those who have seen the deepness of such a family and such a marriage would never call it antiquated. The Tamil wife is pure in thought, devoted to her duties, perfect in hospitality to guests. She is frugal, strong and modest, never bold. She adores her husband and never even looks into the eyes of another man. She is, they say, the authoress of her husband's renown and glory, the support that lifts him high in the eyes of others. These sentiments are exactly reflected in the Jewish tradition, which recommends that husbands read Proverbs 31 to their wives during domestic religious ceremonies.

Consider the words of Tiru M. Arunachalam of Jaffna, Sri Lanka, a note d historian and philosopher: "The Hindu dharma enjoins the dutiful wife to worship her husband as God Himself. A woman who observes this code in life earns for herself the name of pati-vrata (which means 'Godly vow taker'). Our ancient Epics and Puranas a bound in the stories of such dutiful wives. Savitri, Anushya, Arundati are a few. Chief among such wives famous among the Tamils and in literary tradition is Vasuki."

To this very day Vasuki is the role model of tens of millions of Tamil women who pray to Lord Siva that their lives may be as loving and virtuous as this remarkably unspoiled lady's. Differing from their northern counterparts, the Tamils have rejected verses and advice in the Mahabharata and Ramayana that are said to diminish womankind. For the Tamils it is not Rama's wife Sita but Vasuki, the weaver's wife, who is the incomparable woman, the ideal partner, the noblest lady--as is Parvati to Siva.