The Tirukkuṟaḷ (), or shortened to the Kural (), is a classic Tamil language text on commoner's morality consisting of 1,330 short couplets, or kurals, of seven words each. The text is divided into three books with aphoristic teachings on virtue (aram), wealth (porul) and love (inbam), respectively. It is widely admired for the universal and non-sectarian character of its ethical teachings. Its authorship is traditionally attributed to Valluvar, also known in full as Thiruvalluvar. The text has been dated variously from 300 BCE to 5th century CE. The traditional accounts describe it as the last work of the third Sangam, but linguistic analysis suggests a later date of 450 to 500 CE and that it was composed after the Sangam period.
The Kural text is among the earliest systems of Indian epistemology and metaphysics. The work is traditionally praised with epithets and alternative titles, including "the Tamil Veda" and "the Divine Book." Written on the ideas of ahimsa, it emphasizes non-violence and moral vegetarianism as virtues for an individual. In addition, it highlights virtues such as truthfulness, self-restraint, gratitude, hospitality, kindness, goodness of spouse, duty, giving, and so forth, besides covering a wide range of social and political topics such as king, ministers, taxes, justice, forts, war, greatness of army and soldier's honor, death sentence for the wicked, agriculture, education, and abstinence from alcohol and intoxicants. It also includes chapters on friendship, love, sexual unions, and domestic life. The text effectively denounced previously-held misbeliefs that were common during the Sangam era and permanently redefined the cultural values of the Tamil land.
The Kural has influenced scholars and leaders across the ethical, social, political, economic, religious, philosophical, and spiritual spheres over its history. These include Ilango Adigal, Kambar, Leo Tolstoy, Mahatma Gandhi, Albert Schweitzer, Ramalinga Swamigal, V. O. Chidambaram Pillai, Karl Graul, George Uglow Pope, Alexander Piatigorsky, and Yu Hsi. The work remains the most translated, the most cited, and the most citable of Tamil literary works. The text has been translated into at least 57 Indian and non-Indian languages, making it one of the most translated ancient works. Ever since it came to print for the first time in 1812, the Kural text has never been out of print. The Kural is considered a masterpiece and one of the most important texts of the Tamil literature. Its author is venerated for his selection of virtues found in the known literature and presenting them in a manner that is considered common and acceptable to all. The Tamil people and the government of Tamil Nadu have long celebrated and upheld the text with reverence.
Etymology and nomenclature
The term is a compound word made of two individual terms, and . is an honorific Tamil term that corresponds to the Sanskrit term meaning "holy, sacred, excellent, honorable, and beautiful." The term has as many as 19 different meanings in Tamil. means something that is "short, concise, and abridged." Etymologically, is the shortened form of , which is derived from , one of the two Tamil poetic forms explained by the Tolkappiyam, the other one being . According to Miron Winslow, is used as a literary term to indicate "a metrical line of 2 feet, or a distich or couplet of short lines, the first of 4 and the second of 3 feet." Thus, Tirukkuṟaḷ literally comes to mean "sacred couplets."
The work is highly cherished in the Tamil culture, as reflected by its twelve traditional titles: Tirukkuṟaḷ (the sacred kural), Uttaravedam (the ultimate Veda), Tiruvalluvar (eponymous with the author), Poyyamoli (the falseless word), Vayurai valttu (truthful praise), Teyvanul (the divine book), Potumarai (the common Veda), Valluva Maalai (garland made by the author), Tamil Manunool (Tamil ethical treatise), Tiruvalluva Payan (fruit of the author), Muppal (the three-fold path), and Tamilmarai (the Tamil Veda). The work is traditionally grouped under the Eighteen Lesser Texts series of the late Sangam works, known in Tamil as Patiṉeṇkīḻkaṇakku.
Date
The Kural has been dated variously from 300 BCE to 5th century CE. According to traditional accounts, it was the last work of the third Sangam and was subjected to a divine test, which it passed. Scholars such as Somasundara Bharathiar and M. Rajamanickam date the text to as early as 300 BCE. Historian K. K. Pillay assigned it to the early 1st century CE. According to Kamil Zvelebil, a Czech scholar of Tamil literature, these early dates such as 300 BCE to 1 BCE are unacceptable and not supported by evidence within the text. The diction and grammar of the Kural, and Valluvar's indebtedness to some earlier Sanskrit sources, suggest that he lived after the "early Tamil bardic poets," but before Tamil bhakti poets era.
In 1959, S. Vaiyapuri Pillai assigned the work to around or after the 6th century CE. His proposal is based on the evidence that the Kural text contains a large proportion of Sanskrit loan words, shows awareness and indebtedness to some Sanskrit texts best dated to the first half of the 1st millennium CE, and the grammatical innovations in the language of the Kural literature. Pillai published a list of 137 Sanskrit loan words in the Kural text. Later scholars such as Thomas Burrow and Murray Barnson Emeneau show that 35 of these are of Dravidian origin and not Sanskrit loan words. Zvelebil states that an additional few have uncertain etymology and that future studies may prove those to be Dravidian. The 102 remaining loan words from Sanskrit are "not negligible", and some of the teachings in the Kural text, according to Zvelebil, are "undoubtedly" based on the then extant Sanskrit works such as the Arthashastra and Manusmriti (also called the Manavadharmasastra).
In his treatise of Tamil literary history published in 1974, Zvelebil states that the Kural text does not belong to the Sangam period and dates it to somewhere between 450 and 500 CE. His estimate is based on the language of the text, its allusions to the earlier works, and its borrowing from some Sanskrit treatises. Zvelebil notes that the text features several grammatical innovations that are absent in the older Sangam literature. The text also features a higher number of Sanskrit loan words compared with these older texts. According to Zvelebil, besides being part of the ancient Tamil literary tradition, the author was also a part of the "one great Indian ethical, didactic tradition" as a few of the verses in the Kural text are "undoubtedly" translations of the verses of earlier Indian texts.
In the 19th century and the early 20th century, European writers and missionaries variously dated the text and its author to between 400 and 1000 CE. According to Blackburn, the "current scholarly consensus" dates the text and the author to approximately 500 CE.
In 1921, in the face of incessant debate on the precise date, the Tamil Nadu government officially declared 31 BCE as the year of Valluvar at a conference presided over by Maraimalai Adigal. On 18 January 1935, the Valluvar Year was added to the calendar.
Author
The Kural text was authored by Thiruvalluvar (lit. Saint Valluvar). He is known by various other names including Poyyil Pulavar, Mudharpavalar, Deivappulavar, Nayanar, Devar, Nanmukanar, Mathanubangi, Sennabbodhakar, and Perunavalar. There is negligible authentic information available about Valluvar's life. For all practical purposes, neither his actual name nor the original title of his work can be determined with certainty. The Kural text itself does not name its author. The name Thiruvalluvar was first mentioned in the later era Shaivite Hindu text known as the Tiruvalluva Maalai, also of unclear date. However, the Tiruvalluva Maalai does not mention anything about Valluvar's birth, family, caste or background. No other authentic pre-colonial texts have been found to support any legends about the life of Valluvar. Starting around early 19th century, numerous inconsistent legends on Valluvar in various Indian languages and English were published.
Various claims have been made regarding Valluvar's family background and occupation in the colonial era literature, all inferred from selective sections of his text or hagiographies published since the colonial era started in Tamil Nadu. One traditional version claims that he was a Paraiyar weaver. Another theory is that he must have been from the agricultural caste of Vellalars because he extols agriculture in his work. Another states he was an outcaste, born to a Pariah woman and a Brahmin father. Mu Raghava Iyengar speculated that "valluva" in his name is a variation of "vallabha", the designation of a royal officer. S. Vaiyapuri Pillai derived his name from "valluvan" (a Paraiyar caste of royal drummers) and theorized that he was "the chief of the proclaiming boys analogous to a trumpet-major of an army". The traditional biographies not only are inconsistent, but also contain incredulous claims about the author of the Kural text. Along with various versions of his birth circumstances, many state he went to a mountain and met the legendary Agastya and other sages. There are also accounts claiming that, during his return journey, Valluvar sat under a tree whose shadow sat still over him and did not move the entire day, he killed a demon, and many more. Scholars consider these and all associated aspects of these hagiographic stories to be fiction and ahistorical, a feature common to "international and Indian folklore". The alleged low birth, high birth and being a pariah in the traditional accounts are also doubtful. Traditionally, Valluvar is believed to have been married to Vasuki and had a friend and a disciple named Elelasingan.
In a manner similar to speculations of the author's biography, there has been much speculation about his religion with no historical evidence. In determining Valluvar's religion, the crucial test to be applied according to M. S. Purnalingam Pillai is to analyze what religious philosophy he has not condemned, adding that Valluvar has "not said a word against" the Saiva Siddhanta principles. The Kural text is aphoristic and non-denominational in nature and can be selectively interpreted in many ways. This has led almost every major religious group in India, including Christianity during the Colonial era, to claim the work and its author as one of their own. The 19th-century Christian missionary George Uglow Pope, for example, claimed that Valluvar must have lived in the 9th century CE, come in contact with Christian teachers such as Pantaenus of Alexandria, imbibed Christian ideas and peculiarities of Alexandrian teachers and then wrote the "wonderful Kurral" with an "echo of the 'Sermon of the Mount'." This theory, however, is ahistorical and discredited. According to Zvelebil, the ethics and ideas in Valluvar's work are not Christian ethics. Albert Schweitzer hints that "the dating of the Kural has suffered, along with so many other literary and historical dates, philosophies and mythologies of India, a severe mauling at the hands of the Christian Missionaries, anxious to post-date all irrefutable examples of religious maturity to the Christian era."