Thirukkural – the Ancient Tamil Classic on happy living - for 21st century and beyond.

19 November 2020

Thirukkural is acclaimed as “Tamil Marai” meaning the vedas in Tamil and of Tamils.

One of the greatest Tamil literature is Thirukkural, consisting of 1330 couplets (two line short verses) spread over 133 chapters, each chapter consisting of ten couplets and concerning itself with one critical aspect of life. These 133 chapters encompass practically all aspects of human life involving Virtue, Wealth and Love, written with the objective of making people’s life happy. The two words never used in this entire text is Tamil and God, clearly telling it is a secular, non-religious text and does not eulogize any one language including Tamil in which it is written. Thirukkural also does not talk about caste, creed, language, religion etc.

Thirukkural has been written about 2300 years back! But like the great epics of India, Thirukkural, if anything, is more relevant even today.

Thirukkural was found from kandhappan's house in Chennai around 1850CE, and was published during second century.

Thirukural is translated into 26 Languages of the world. It is translated into English by 40

Authors.

The English translation I use extensively in this book is the one by Dr. M.Rajaram, IAS, who has a post-graduate degree in English literature, holds a B.L and a Ph.D. in addition. this English translation has a forward by Dr. Abdul Kalam, the former President of India and hailed as space man of India and people’s President of India. You need an English translation of the book on Thirukkural to read my book as I am not quoting the couplets as such: I am referring only to the Kural number in my book and I strongly recommend this English translation by Dr. Rajaram IAS, for your reference as you read my book.

The author of this great literature is Sage Thiruvalluvar. The time he lived is not exactly known and varies from around 500 A.D. to around 300 B.C.

The objective of writing this book is not yet another English translation of Thirukkural. The objective is to answer two questions that may arise in the minds of people in the 21st century and beyond, when we read a book like Thirukkural, dealing with Virtue, Wealth and Love.

The first such question is why? Why Thiruvalluvar says what he says? The answer to this question should be “scientific” i.e., should be based on laws of science known to us in the 21st century as we believe that any other explanation is fiction or imagination or even superstition! This has happened because of a skewed education system that places all emphasis on science and very little emphasis in non-science like humanities. Science has severe limitations and what Newton said centuries ago largely holds good today also: “I am sitting on the sea-shore counting pebbles but the vast sea of knowledge remains unexplored”. If we go by only what science has discovered to date, we will miss the vast sea of non-science. We should understand that non-science is not non-sense.

Secondly we have attempted to give “how-to” in this book in appropriate places to help those who sincerely want to practice what Valluvar says even for just experimentation purposes. The how-to presented in this book is tested for over 50 years in actual practice and is the most effective way of getting at the result promised by Thirukkural. We have given specific live examples from home and industry to explain how-to very clearly.

Both these things I have done without reproducing the couplet but by simply giving reference of the couplet number; that is why you should have a translated version of Thirukkural such as the one by Dr. rajaram, by your side as you read my book.

Happy reading and effective practice!