The chapter on Destiny requires some explanation. The word used by the poet is Ûj and its original meaning is old or ancient. The idea underlying the word is the accumulated unspent force of a man’s actions in all his past lives. The Hindu belief is that all actions good and bad alike have, in addition to their visible physical effect in life, an invisible effect in the unseen world which transforms itself again into visible effects only later on. Using the phraseology of physical science may help a good deal to understand what we mean. Of the total force of every action of a man—including thought and word also in the word action—one part goes off as kinetic energy and that is represented by its visible effects that appear immediately the action is ended. But another part remains unspent for the time being and, whether it is much or little, it is stored up somewhere in the universe to uncoil itself as time and opportunity offer themselves. The storing up is certainly in part in the character of the man who does the action. But another and sometimes the major part of it is in Nature and in the memory of consciousness of fellow-men. Now the innumerable actions, conscious and unconscious, of a man’s life go on accumulating this potential energy until the very end of his life on earth, if not even beyond. Some of this potential energy is being turned to kinetic every moment of his life, but all the same a large portion remains unspent at the moment of death and accompanies the soul in its transmigration into another body. It is this energy waiting to materialise itself in the new life of the soul that our philosophical writers call by the name of karma or Ûj. The idea of the all but omnipotent force of this karma can now be rightly grasped by the reader, whether he is convinced of the truth of it as a fact or not. It is powerful because it forms part and parcel of a man’s character as the original tendencies with which he is born. And the portion of it that has formed part of Nature and remains in the memory of fellow-men must be even more powerful as it is much more beyond the control of the subject’s will than his inward tendencies. We hope these words will be sufficient to make the reader understand the trend of chapter 38 to which the title Destiny is given only for want of a better word to express the above ideas. That the ideas expressed in this chapter are however quite compatible with an active and energetic life, the author shows everywhere and especially in verses 619 and 620 and chapter 27.
The position of this chapter at the end of the Part on Righteousness may be explained thus. The author who is not a lawgiver in the sense that he has the power to compel the observance of his laws, has however to see that his laws are obeyed by those to whom they are intended. He requires a sanction to compel men to pursue the path of righteousness that he has showed with such infinite love to them. And what higher sanction is there than the knowledge that if a man does evil he will carry a load of evil which will make him unhappy and cursed in his next birth, and that if he does good he will have laid by a treasure which will be a blessing to him whenever and wherever he happens to live his next birth?
Part II—Wealth
The author takes up the question of Politics in the second Part of the book. The fact that this part is about twice the size of the first and thrice that of the third shows what importance the sage gives to politics in his scheme of life. The giving of the title of Wealth to this subject is no new invention of Thiruvalluvar. Already Kauṭilya had written his immortal treatise on politics and called it the Arthashâstra or treatise on wealth. But even he is not the inventor of this nomenclature, for it is at least as old as the Mahâbhârata. The underlying idea seems to be that wealth cannot be amassed or enjoyed in security except under a stable and well-ordered government. For “the condition of the rich man is more galling than that of the poor under the rule of the tyrant prince (558).” Of course the vast majority of the rules that are laid down for the guidance of the prince and the minister apply with no less force to the man who is after the acquisition of wealth.
As, in the first part, the poet shows himself as a moral teacher of the very highest order, so, in this part he appears as a consummate statesman
