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Introduction xU mwpKfkÊ
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The real greatness of Thirukkural is its survival, even after the onslaughts of many heterogenous creeds. In the last two thousand years, it never failed to attract any scholar or lover of wisdom. Everyone of them, never failed to treat Thirukkural as a finest composition. The following are few of such scintillating tributes to Thirukkural by the world scholars. |
Thiruvalluvar, the poet and philosopher of Tamilnadu - India is the everest of Tamil wisdom. Thirukkural, the masterpiece of Thiruvalluvar, which in a mini-work in size, contains 133 chapters on different aspects of life, and each chapter consists of ten couplets. So Thirukkural contains 1330 couplets. Each couplet is called Kural-Venba (KURAL), which is one of the basic metres of Tamil prosody. |
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Thiruvalluvar, the poet and philosopher of Tamilnadu, is the Everest of Tamil wisdom. He belongs to the first century B.C. (31 BC).
Thirukkural has been broadly divided into three parts, of which the first deals with Aram (VIRTUE) the moral value of Life, the second discusses Porul (WEALTH), socio-economic values of Life, and the third on Kamam (LOVE), depicts the psychological values of Life. There are 38 chapters in the first part, 70 chapters in the second part and 25 chapters in the third part. In the third part, Thiruvalluvar plays the role of creative artist. But in the first two parts, we find Thiruvalluvar as a moral philosopher and political scientist. Only in the third part, Thiruvalluvar portrays the fascinating aspects of lovers, the Akam tradition which he has inherited from his ancestors. No significant tribute is needed for the supremacy of its subject matter, than the fact that it has been translated into a number of languages of the World. Perhaps, it can be claimed that there is no other work of non-religious nature, which stand in comparison to Thirukkural. In the range of subject-matter and brevity of the couplets, Thirukkural excels the other didactic literature of the World. As a great thinker, St. Thiruvalluvar, actually transgreeses the frontiers of language and creed. His scripture of Universalism has induced to recognise him as one of the greatest philosophers, to be placed in the midst of Socrates, Kant and Confucius, the illustrious moral philosophers of the mankind. In the sphere of Political Science and Public administration, Thiruvalluvar seems supreme in his treatment and humanistic approach than Aristotle, Kantilya, Machiavell and Harold Laski. When we take into consideration, the third part of Thirukkural, no other poet can be placed by the side of Thiruvalluvar, except the mysterious Roman poet, Ovid 43 BC - 18 AD., who immortalised the agony and anguish and the ecstasy and exhilaration of the loving-hearts in his famous Ars Amorous.
The KURAL's
sentences are as binding as the TEN commandments on the jews. KURAL
is as important and influential on the Tamil mind as Dante's great
work on the language and thought of Italy.
KURAL has entered into the very soul of a whole people. It proclaims sweetest mystic couplets on virtue, truth, wealth and joy. Valluvar is seer of spotless souls.
KURAL means 'anything
short', and is properly the name of the couplet, as being the
shortest species of stanza in the Tamil language. Thiruvalluvar's
poem is thus by no means a long one; though in value it far
outweighs the whole of the remaining Tamil literature, and is one of
the select number of great work which have entered into the very
soul of a whole people, and which can never die.
Nothing in the whole
compass of human language, can equal the force and terseness of the
distiches in which the author of KURAL conveys the lessons of
wisdom.
It is a text-book
of indispensable authority on moral life. The maxim's of VALLUVAR
has touched my soul.
Thirukkural is the
well known literary composition in the Sankam classics. This work
proclaims the basic principles for the moral and material life of
the people. The aphorisms about 'loving-kindness' reveal the humane
approach of the poet to the problems of life.
No translation can
convey an idea of its (Thirukkural's) charming effect. It is truly
an apple of gold in the network of silver.
Thirukkural is a
treatise par excellence on the art of living. Thiruvalluvar, the
author, diagnoses the intricacies of human nature with such
penetrating insight, perfect mastery and consummate skill absorbing
the most subtule concepts of love and modern psychology, that one is
left wondering at his sweep and depth.
The KURAL, on the
other hand all the time stays at the level of general principles,
i.e., what may be called a mandatory ethics.
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