Cause of degraded birth the fond delusive dream.
All things that good appear will oft have ill success;
All evil things prove good for gain of happiness.
The learned make each land their own, in every city find a home;
Who, till they die, learn nought, along what weary ways they roam!
The jackal slays, in miry paths of foot-betraying fen,
The elephant of fearless eye and tusks transfixing armed men.
These two: the code renowned, and spies,
In these let king confide as eyes.
Unversed in councils, who essays to speak,
Knows not the way of suasive words—and all is weak.
A steed untrained will leave in the tug of war;
Than friends like that to dwell alone is better far.
’Tis as with strings a wooden puppet apes life’s functions, when
Those void of shame within hold intercourse with men.
The good to those will profit yield fair words who use;
The base like sugarcane, will profit those who bruise.
For her with beauteous brow, the maid I love, there place is none;
To give her image room, O pupil of mine eye, begone!
In the translation of the titles of chapters also Pope has been singularly unhappy in many instances. Thus the headings, The knowledge of power (48),1 Knowing the place (50), The right sceptre (55), Power in speech (65), Power in action (67), The knowledge of indications (71), The might of hatred (87), Knowing the quality of hate (88), among others, are very unfortunate renderings of the original and do not give the reader any idea of what is contained in the respective chapters. A comparison of the translations of the verses and chapter headings of Drew and Pope given above, with those given in this book will show how much the former are lacking in force; and yet the latter do not render all the vigour and force of the original.
Thiruvalluvar
We know very little about the life of our poet. As in the case of so many of the world’s greatest men of the past, we have only to make our own conjectures even as to the time at which he flourished. Tradition says that he lived at Mylapore, Madras, where he had a friend in a rich merchant captain of the name of Elêla Shingan. This Shingan is described as the sixth descendant of a Chôla prince who, according to the Mahâvamsho of Ceylon, carried on a successful war against that island about 140 BC. This would give the 1st century AD as the probable date at which Thiruvalluvar flourished. Again, tradition declares that the Kural was published at the Madura College of poets in the reign of the Pânḍian Ugrapperuvajudi.2 Shrîmân M. Srînivâsa Aiyangâr in his scholarly book of Tamil Studies gives the date of accession of this king tentatively as 125 AD. Again, verse 55 of the Kural is quoted in Shilappadhikâram and Maṇimêkhalai, two great poems in the Tamil language, which have been determined on other evidence to have been written about the first or second century AD. We can therefore take it that our poet flourished between the 1st and 3rd centuries of the Christian era. Shrîmân M. Râghava Aiyangâr, writing in his able work on Chêran Chen-Kuṭṭuvan, has recently suggested the 5th century AD as the probable date of the two works above mentioned. But as it is admitted that the Kural is earlier in date than those two poems, this theory does not affect the limits above fixed for our Poet.
The very name of the poet is unknown to history, for the word Thiruvalluvar only means “the devotee of the valluva caste.” The valluvas are pariahs who proclaim the orders and commands promulgated by the king, by beat of drum from the back of elephants. From an encomiastic stanza on the author which tradition has preserved, it appears that he was born at Madura, the capital of the Pânḍias. Tradition declares that he was the child of a Brahman father named Bhagavan and a pariah mother Adi who had been brought up by another Brahman and given in marriage to Bhagavan. Six other children are named as the issue of this union, all of whom have dabbled in poetry.
Not much else is known about Thiruvalluvar besides the following bare facts. He was a weaver in Mylapore, having chosen weaving as the most innocent of all professions. He lived a happy family life until the death of his wife Vâsuki who was a model of every wifely virtue. Then he is said to have renounced the world and become an ascetic. A small book on the mysteries of wisdom, called Jnânaveṭṭi, is also attributed to him but the evidence of style seems to be against his authorship of it.
The Tamil people love to tell stories about his married life, which may be true or may be false, but which certainly serve to show not only what was their conception of the ideal home but also that Thiruvalluvar’s married life was in perfect agreement with the ideal as understood by them. Artless simplicity and unquestioning obedience to the husband are the first qualities that the East requires in the wife. Thiruvalluvar is said to have tested the faith of his prospective wife in him by asking her to boil and cook for him a handful of nailheads and other iron pieces. She took them in perfect faith and did as she was bid. The poet felt that she was the proper helpmate for him and married her. The fame of the happiness of their married life spread far and wide. A sage once visited him in order to ascertain for himself the truth of the report and to ask him whether he would recommend him to get married. Instead of answering the question directly, Thiruvalluvar wanted that the sage should draw his own conclusion after staying with him for
