The Kural

had been born, he freed himself from the trammels of all sects and worked his way up to the Illuminated Existence of the Yogin for whom there are no persuasions or sects or religions, but only Truth and Wisdom and Joy.

The Verse

A few words on the verse of the Kural will not be deemed out of place here though this book is mainly intended for readers who are unacquainted with Tamil. The title of the book itself indicates to the Tamil reader the verse in which it is written. For the word Kural means only a short rhymed couplet, the first line of which is composed of four feet and the second of three feet. The last foot of the first line or the first foot of the second line should rhyme with the first foot of the first line. The ability with which the poet manages the caesura in these short verses is something masterly. It is within the compass of these seven feet that our author has compressed some of the profoundest thoughts that have ever been uttered by man. And how like a master he plays on this tiny instrument! Sparkling wit and humour, the pointed statement, fancy, irony, the naive question, the picturesque simile, there is not one of these and others of the thousand tricks of the born artist that our author has not employed in this perfect masterpiece of art. But the abiding note in this varied symphony is the sublime. Well has an admirer described the Kural as “a little mustard seed, but whose bore holds all the waters of the seven seas.” If we should start quoting we should have to quote each one of the 1330 verses that compose the book, and so we shall merely refer the reader to verses 263, 397, 827, 835, 839, 922, 930, 1071, 1072, 1073, 1219, and 1220 as some of the finest that be can ever meet with in any work in the world.

The following transliteration of a typical verse is intended to satisfy the curiosity of those readers who are unacquainted with Tamil:

Kâmam vehuli mayakkam ivaimûndrin
Nâmam keḍakkeḍum nôy.

—⁠Verse 360.

Parimêlajahar

No man that writes or speaks about the Kural can forget to refer to its greatest commentator Parimêlajahar. Parimêlajahar was a Brahman scholar who lived and taught at Kânchi about 600 years ago. Nine commentators had interpreted the Kural before him. But it was reserved for him to enter into the very mind of the author, as it were, and bring out every beauty and point that lie embedded in the original. But for his commentary none in modern days could understand the full significance of the original verses. His commentary is as terse and vigorous as the Kural itself in point of style. The reasonings by which he condemns readings and renderings other than his own are a study in sharp, incisive, logical, and dignified criticism. I am tempted to give an example of his method of commenting. I take verse 687 which would stand thus in literal translation: Knowing his duty, considering the time, judging the place, (and) deliberating, (who) speaks (is) head.

Here is the commentary:

• “Knowing his duty: understanding how to comport himself before foreign princes;

• Considering the time: judging the moods of those princes;

• Judging the place: judging the proper place to address to them the business for which he has gone;

• Deliberating: meditating within himself beforehand as to how he should deliver his message;

• (Who) speaks (is) head: who delivers the same in that manner is the fittest among ambassadors.

“The manner of comporting himself before princes consists in weighing the political situation of their kingdom as well as that of his own king, weighing his own status as ambassador, and regulating thereon the formalities to be observed in visiting and speaking to the prince etc. Mood is the state of mind that is prepared to receive in good part what he (the envoy) is going to say. As it depends on time the author mentions time also. The place referred to is the place where there are men who are friendly to the ambassador. Deliberation consists in imagining the words that he is going to use, the possible replies of the other side, his own rejoinders etc. in all their possible developments. As the northern writers (Sanskrit authors) add the carriers of written messages to the other two classes of ambassadors (explained in the commentator’s note to the title of the chapter as he who speaks only what he is told to speak, and he who is allowed a wide discretion as to what he is to speak, the word speak being used in the sense of negotiating), and classify envoys into three classes, namely, first (lit. head), second (lit. the middle), and third (lit. lowest or last), our author uses the word head so as to apply to their classification also. The word ambassador is supplied by the title of the chapter. These five verses (683 to 687) describe the qualifications of the ambassador who is allowed full freedom of negotiation.”

I shall give but one example of the commentator’s criticism. In verse 338 which reads, The fledgeling abandoneth the broken shell of the egg and flieth away: that is the symbol of the love between the soul and the body, the word kuḍambai which Parimêlajahar explains as the shell of the egg had been explained by others as nest, either of which meanings being correct from the etymological point of view. It is in these words that he supports his own rendering as against the other:

“As the author says abandoneth (more literally abandoneth to itself) we obtain the unseparatedness of the shell in the previous stage: that is, its contemporaneous origin with the embryo and its remaining as the matrix and support of the same until the very moment of separation. Hence it is the symbol of the body. As the bird is one with the shell in the beginning and