MRINALINI SARABHAI writes of the enduring relevance of Tamil and the Thirukural of Valluvar
The Thirukural is among the finest works of Indian spiritual literature, comparable to the vedas. More than 2,000 years old, it was written in Tamil by a humble weaver,Valluvar, born in Madras (Chennai). Presented in poetic couplets, the Kural is a treatise on the threefold purposeful direction of life: Aram or virtue, Porul or wealth, and Inbam or love. It begins with invocation of the Supreme, followed by an elaboration of the three directives, and ends in mukti. Considerable space has been devoted to talk about the importance of rain: “The world cannot exist without water, the nectar of life.” The grammar of the Tamil language identifies with existence, and its intellectual aesthetics is of a very high order. The kural’s theme is right conduct and ethics.Thiruvalluvar does not extol asceticism but says,“The life of the householder is far greater than that of one on the path of renunciation. What is dharma, but the life of the householder? But of course, it has to be free from reproach, marked by love and rectitude.”
The kural is divided into three sections. The first deals with citizenship, domestic life and asceticism, the second is on royalty and the State, and the third book is on love. It offers useful suggestions on the art of governance. “Good government makes one’s rule enduring.Where it is absent the lustre will not last long,” and again, “the unrighteous ruler who opposes his subjects is more cruel than the one who leads the life of a murderer, and a treacherous minister is equal to seventy crore enemies.” One can open any page of the kural and find excellent advice. “Do not give up your work because you find it difficult. The art of doing it comes of exertion and the world will abandon those who leave their tasks unfinished.” Turning the pages, one wonders how this simple man from Mylapore could have culled all this wisdom. While he deals with a variety of subjects, many stanzas are suffused with humour. “One must regard it as a windfall if one is able to shake off unwise friends,” he says and warns us of the harm of “indiscriminate choice of acquaintances.” Talking about diet,Valluvar says, “No disease attacks the person who eats in moderation the food which agrees with him, for countless are the ills that befall a glutton.” Thiruvalluvar is also a romantic. He understands love as much as he does righteous conduct and ethical behaviour. “Of what avail are words when eyes speak to eyes and heart whispers unto heart?” He exalts his love:“O aniccam flower, the best and softest of all flowers, may you be blessed, but do not forget that my lady is more tender.”
He writes: “The many scandals about our love indeed give me fresh hope and sustain my wretched life. Luckily for me the village folk do not know what their scandals have done. The rumours have indeed heightened my love,”muses the heroine. Tamil offers the earliest inspiration of Indian culture and from this language came many of the original thoughts of modern Hinduism. According to scholars, the great importance attached by the ancient Tamils to include subjectives and objectives in the grammar of their language, cannot but indicate that they were striving to identify the laws of general existence with the laws of the grammar of language. The Tamil language has survived as a spoken tongue for more than 2,500 years with its basic structure unchanged. And the kural is an enduring example of the changeless nature of right human values.
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