As the people took the king for their model, it was his duty to set up a high moral standard by his personal conduct. In many poems he was exhorted to keep a strict mastery over his passions in order to rule successfully. He was to be liberal in his patron- age of religion, arts, and letters. He was to show paternal care for his subjects and to be impartial as among different sections of them. He held a daily durbar (nalavai) at which he heard and set right all complaints. The onerous character of the royal task is emphasized by a poet who compares a king to a strong bull, which drags a cart laden with salt from the plains to the uplands, another afﬁrms that the king, much more than rice or water, is the life of the people.