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The Tirukkural (Tamil: திருக்குறள்), shortly known as the Kural, is a classic Tamil sangam treatise on the art of living. Consisting of 133 chapters with 1330 couplets or kurals, it deals with the everyday virtues of an individual. Authored by Thiruvalluvar between the third and first centuries BCE, it is considered one of the greatest works ever written on ethics and morality and is praised for its universality and non-denominational nature.
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Tirukkural is considered chef d'oeuvre of both Indian and world literature. The universality of the work is expressed by the various other names by which the text is given by, such as Tamiḻ maṟai (Tamil veda), Poyyāmoḻi (words that never fail), Vāyurai vāḻttu (truthful utterances), Ulaga pothumaṟai (The universal veda), and Deiva nūl (divine text). Tirukkural has been praised for its veracity over the millennia by great intellects around the globe. This article lists the quotations on the Kural text by various individuals over the centuries.
A
(Avvaiyar, ancient Tamil poet, c. 1st and 2nd century CE)
"A masterpiece of Tamil literature, one of the highest and purest expressions of human thought."
(Monsieur Ariel, translator and publisher of the third part of the Kural to French, 1848)
(Sri Aurobindo, Indian nationalist, philosopher, yogi, and poet, 1872–1950)
B
(Subramania Bharathi, Poet and Indian nationalist, 1882–1921)
(W. Norman Brown, American Indologist and Sanskritist, 1892–1975)
G
"The maxims of Valluvar have touched my soul. There is none who has given such a treasure of wisdom like him."
"We may not all be aware even of the name of Sage Thiruvalluvar. North Indian people certainly do not know his name. Few saints have given to the people as much knowledge as he has done in the minimum of words."
(Mahatma Gandhi, Indian nationalist, 1869–1948)
Note: Mahatma Gandhi took to studying Tirukkural in prison after he learnt about the work from Leo Tolstoy through the latter's letter A Letter to a Hindu.
(Sir A. C. Grant)
(Charles E. Gover, English folklorist, d. 1872)
(Dr. Graul, first German translator of the Kural text)
H
"Thiruvalluvar was one of the greatest products of Indian Culture. The saint's idealism, his philosophy, humane practical sense and universal ethical code had mingled into the mainstream of Indian Culture and had become part of the common cultural heritage and philosophers of India."
(Zakir Hussain, president of India, 1897–1969)
I
(K. R. Srinivasa Iyengar, Indian writer, 1908–1999)
"Artists have always refused to admit didactic poetry into the legitimate realms of the Muse, but if excellence of workmanship and the occasional illumination of moral teaching by flashes of true poetic fire can justify the acceptance of any didactic poem as true poetry and the Thirukkural is that poem."
(P. T. Srinivasa Iyengar, Indian historian, linguist and educationist, 1863–1931)
K
(A. P. J. Abdul Kalam, president of India, 1931–2015)
L
(Rev. J. Lazarus)
M
(Narendra Modi, Indian Prime Minister, 1950–)
(K. M. Munshi, Indian independence movement activist, politician, writer and educationist, 1887–1971)
"The contents of the work represent the general aphoristic wisdom of India and do not belong to any particular section."
(John Murdoch, Christian missionary in Ceylon and India, 1819–1904)
P
"Thiruvalluvar is rightly considered as Chef d'oeuvre of both Indian and world literature. This is due not only to the great artistic merits of the work but also to the lofty humane ideas permeating it which are equally precious to the people all over the world, of all periods and countries."
(Alexander Piatigorsky, Russian philosopher, 1929–2009)
No tongue repeats, no speech reveals your name
Yet, all things changing, dies not your fame
For you are a bard of universal man.
And still your 'Book' above the waters wans
Virtue, true wealth, and joy, and beings' aim
In sweetest mystic couplets does proclaim
Where winds sea-wafted palmy forests fan.
Haply undreamed of 'Visions' glad your eyes
In realms beyond your fabled sevenfold birth
And clouds of darkness from your spirit roll.
While lands far off have heard with strange surprise
Faint echoes of your song. Through all the earth
Men hail you brother, seer of spotless soul!"
"The Kural owes much of its popularity to its exquisite poetic form. The brevity rendered necessary by the form gives an oracular effect to the utterances of the great Tamil 'Master of Sentences'. They are the choicest of moral epigrams. Their resemblance to gnomic poetry of Greece is remarkable as to their subjects, their sentiments and the state of society when they are uttered. Something of the same kind is found in Greek epigrams, in Martial and the Latin elegiac verse. There is a beauty in the periodic character of the Tamil construction in many of these verses that read minds, the reader of the happiest efforts of properties."
"He was undoubtedly one of the great geniuses of the world. Complete in itself, the sole work of its author (the Kural) has come down the stream of ages, absolutely uninjured, hardly a single various readings of any importance being found. In value it (Kural) outweighs the whole of the remaining Tamil Literature and is one of the selected numbers of great works which have entered into the very soul of a whole people and which can never die."
(George Uglow Pope, Christian missionary to India, 1820–1908)
R
"Among the precious classics of the world literature the Kural takes a place in the front rank."
"Thiruvalluvar was one of those rare and great men whose catholic spirit rose above all denominations and whose vision was not clouded by dogma or prejudice of any kind. His teachings elude classification on any denominational basis."
(Rajaji, Governor-General of India, 1878–1972)
(E. J. Robinson)
S
"After reading Kural, we will realise that Indian culture all over the country is one. The art of this great country is full of the same blood."
(Sane Guruji, Marathi author, teacher, and nationalist, 1899–1950)
"World and life negation are found in the thought of Jesus insofar as he did not assume that the Kingdom of God would be realized in this natural world. He expected that this natural world would very speedily come to an end and be superseded by a supernatural world in which all that is imperfect and evil would be overcome by the 'power of God'. On the contrary, Valluvar believed that in this very natural world, the liberated man can find his heaven and said that perfect bliss could be attained by an individual in this natural world itself and it is unnecessary to wait indefinitely for the transformation of the world in order to transform oneself. Thus, he took life and world affirmation to a loftier plane than Christ did."
"The idea of active love did arise in the popular ethics of India in fairly ancient times. We know from many stories we meet in her literature and especially through the ethical maxims found in the Kural, a work which probably belongs to the second century A.D."
"In the ethics of the Kural, as in those of the Laws of Manu, the idea of reward has a place. The way of virtue is recommended because it leads to a better reincarnation or to liberation from re-birth."
"Whilst Bhagavad Gita in a forced and chilly manner gives as a motive for remaining in active life that it is in accordance with the order of universe, the Kural justifies it – what an advance – by the idea of ethical activity. Work and profit place a man in a position to do good. According to the Kural, duty is not contained as in the Bhagavad Gita to what the caste calling involves but consists in general in 'all that is good'."
"Maxims about joy in activity, such as one would not expect from the Indian lips, bear witness to the strength of the world and life affirmation present in the Kural."
"Like the Buddha and the Bhagavad Gita, the Kural desires inner freedom from the world and a mind free from hatred. Like them it stands for the commandment not to kill and not to damage. It has appropriated all the valuable ethical results of the thought of world and life negation. But in addition to this ethic of inwardness, there appears in the Kural the living ethic of love."
"With sure stroke, the Kural draws the ideal of simple ethical humanity. On the most varied questions concerning the conduct of man to the world its utterances are characterized by nobility and good sense."
(Albert Schweitzer, French-German theologian, organist, philosopher, and physician, 1875–1965)
(Swami Shivanandha, Indian spiritual leader)
(Sardar Ujjal Singh, Former governor of Punjab and Tamil Nadu, 1895–1983)
T
"What are wanted for the Indian as for the Englishman, the Frenchman, the German, and the Russian, are not Constitutions and Revolutions, nor all sorts of Conferences and Congresses, nor the many ingenious devices for submarine navigation and aerial navigation, nor powerful explosives, nor all sorts of conveniences to add to the enjoyment of the rich, ruling classes; nor gramophones and cinematographs, not those childish and for the most part corrupt stupidities termed art – but one thing only is needful: the knowledge of the simple and clear truth which finds place in every soul that is not stupefied by religious and scientific superstitions – the truth that for our life one law is valid – the law of love, which brings the highest happiness to every individual as well as to all mankind."
(Leo Tolstoy, Russian writer, 1828–1910)
Note:Leo Tolstoy was inspired by the concept of non-violence found in the Tirukkural when he read a German version of the book, who in turn instilled the concept in Mahatma Gandhi through his A Letter to a Hindu when young Gandhi sought his advice.
(Ancient Tamil maxim)
V
(Vairamuthu, Indian poet and lyricist, 1953–)
W
(Rev. Emmons E. White)
Y
(Yu Hsi, Taiwanese poet and translator of Tirukkural in Mandarin)
Z
"The Kural, one of the great books of the World, one of those singular emanations of human heart and spirit which preaches positive love, forgiveness and peace."
"As regards the Kural it stands on its merits. The purity of its Tamil, the richness of its diction, the lofty tone of its morality, the theistic and unsectarian nature of its theology, the endless variety of topics discussed in its one hundred and thirty-three chapters and the profound esteem in which it is held by all classes of Tamil-speaking Hindus are too well-known to need praise or comment."
"One should never contemplate the couplets in isolation. We must again and again stress that they have true validity and meaning only in their patterned relation to other couplets, and to the whole. And when read and contemplated in this way, Thiruvalluvar's ethics is never that of a Chanakya or a Macchiavelli."
"Let it be said in conclusion that it is almost impossible to truly appreciate the maxims of the Kural through a translation. Thirukkural must be read and re-read in Tamil. This fact, too, reveals something about the nature and degree of its 'poetic excellence'."
"It is more important that he was also a very integral part of the non-Sanskrit and pre-Sanskrit Tamil tradition. This fact is seen not only from his conception of 'pleasure' which is so typically a reflexion of the akam genre, but also from the all-pervading pragmatic, this-worldly, empirical and, to a great extent, humanistic and universalistic character of his particular conception of dharma and justice."
"Above all I believe that the outstanding works of Tamil literature of the past, and the very interesting writings of the present times, should be translated, published and spread wide, they intrinsically belongs to the literary heritage of the world and man's culture will be enriched by their general knowledge."
"Thiruvalluvar's Kamattuppal is utterly different from any of the Sanskrit Kamasastras. While Vatsyayana's work (and all later Sanskrit erotology) is Sastra, that is, objective and scientific analysis of sex, the third part of the Kural is a poetic picture of eros, of ideal love, of its dramatic situations. As a work of literary art, [it] reveals a single structural plan, and looks like a work of a single master ... In the erotic couplets of the third part (Kamattuppal), the teacher, the preacher in Valluvar has stepped aside and the poet speaks almost the language of the superb love poetry of the classical Age."
(Kamil Zvelebil, Czech scholar in Indian literature and linguistics, 1927–2009)
References
Praise of Tirukkural Wikipedia(Text) CC BY-SA