01Seven words a couplet
Each kural is written in the kural venba metre: four words in the first line, three in the second. That is all. Into seven words Thiruvalluvar fits a whole rule for living, and the brevity is the point. A child in a Tamil school learns the first chapter, on praise of God, before she can read well; a judge in Chennai may quote a couplet from the chapter on just rule in a judgement. Every chapter, called an adhikaram, has exactly ten couplets, 133 chapters in all, and the chapter titles alone read like a manual for a householder, a king and a lover.
02Thiruvalluvar
Of the poet himself very little is recorded, and he says nothing of himself in the work. Tamil tradition remembers him as a weaver of Mylapore in Chennai, married to Vasuki, a wife so devoted that her name became a byword. The Tamil Nadu calendar counts a Thiruvalluvar era from 31 BCE. Later poets gathered praise of the Kural into the Tiruvalluva Malai, and a shrine to the poet stands at Mylapore. Valluvar Kottam in Chennai, opened in 1976, is built as a great stone temple chariot, with all 1,330 couplets carved in granite in its hall.
03Aram, Porul, Inbam
The three parts follow the order of the purusharthas: Aram is dharma, Porul is artha, Inbam is kama. Moksha is not given a part of its own, yet the first part closes with chapters on renunciation, the knowledge of truth and the uprooting of desire, and the reader is meant to see the way to release there. Aram has 38 chapters, Porul 70 and Inbam 25. The proportions tell you what Valluvar thought a person most needed help with: how to live and act in the world, among kings, friends, enemies, money and work.
04The householder and the ascetic
Aram opens with four chapters of payiram, the preface: praise of God, the glory of rain, the greatness of those who have renounced, and the strength of dharma. Then twenty chapters on the householder: the good wife, children, love, hospitality to the guest, sweet speech, gratitude, impartiality, self-control, patience, not envying, not slandering, giving. Valluvar calls the householder the support of the other three stations of life. Thirteen chapters follow for the ascetic: compassion, refusing meat, true tapas, not stealing, truthfulness, not killing, the passing of all things, renunciation. One chapter on destiny, Ooliyal, closes the part.
05Kings, ministers and the farmer
Porul is the largest part, and the most practical. It begins with the king: he must have six things, an army, a people, wealth, ministers, allies and a fort. It goes on to learning, the danger of ignorance, listening to the wise, knowing one’s strength and the right time and place, choosing men with care, spies, energy, never giving up. Then the ministers, the art of speech, the envoy, the conduct of a courtier, the land, the fort, the army, friendship true and false, the enemy within, gambling, drink and medicine. Near the end stands the chapter on ploughing, which says the world, however it turns, follows the plough.
06Love in two seasons
Inbam is love, in two movements that the Tamil poets before Valluvar had already named: kalavu, the hidden love before marriage, in 7 chapters, and karpu, wedded love, in 18. No one is named. The man, the woman and her friend speak in turn: the first sight that strikes like a goddess, the glance returned, the pain of parting, eyes that weep for the absent one, the evening that comes like a killer, dreams that bring the beloved back. The very last chapter is on ūdal, the lovers’ quarrel, and the last couplet says that the joy of love is the quarrel, and the joy of the quarrel is the embrace that ends it.
07Claimed by every path
The first couplet praises Adi Bhagavan, the Primal Lord, and later ones speak of the One who walked upon the flower and of the Lord of eight qualities, yet the Kural names no sect. Shaivas have read it as their own, and so have Vaishnavas and Jains, each finding their teaching in its chapters on compassion and not killing. Tamil households call it Ulaga Podhumarai, the scripture common to the whole world, and Tamil Marai, the Tamil Veda. Its praise of rain, of the guest, of truthful speech and of the plough sits easily in any home in Tamil Nadu, whatever shrine the family visits.
08Ten commentators and many tongues
Ten medieval commentators wrote on the Kural; of their work, five survive. Manakkudavar’s is the oldest that has come down, and Parimelazhagar’s of the thirteenth century is still the one most Tamil readers learn with. The Italian Jesuit Constantine Joseph Beschi put the first two parts into Latin around 1730, F. W. Ellis made English versions in Madras in the early nineteenth century, and G. U. Pope’s complete English translation appeared in 1886. Tolstoy quoted the Kural on returning good for evil in his Letter to a Hindu of 1908, which Gandhi read and translated. It has been translated into more languages than any other Tamil work, Hindi and Sanskrit among them.
09Read and recited today
On Thiruvalluvar Day in the month of Thai, the day after Pongal, couplets are recited in schools across Tamil Nadu, and children compete to recite all 1,330 from memory. Government buses in the state carry a kural painted inside, so that a commuter reads one a day. At Kanyakumari a statue of the poet, 133 feet tall for the 133 chapters, stands on a rock in the sea beside the Vivekananda Rock Memorial; it was unveiled on 1 January 2000. Its pedestal is 38 feet high, for the 38 chapters of Aram, and the figure above it 95 feet, for Porul and Inbam together.
What it contains
- 1Arattuppal I: Payiraviyal (preface) பாயிரவியல்
Chapters 1–4: praise of God, the glory of rain, the greatness of renunciants, and the strength of dharma. Every Tamil schoolchild meets the Kural here.
- 2Arattuppal II: Illaraviyal (the householder) இல்லறவியல்
Chapters 5–24: the household life, the good wife, children, love, hospitality, sweet speech, gratitude, self-control, patience and giving. It ends with chapters on generosity and fame.
- 3Arattuppal III: Thuravaraviyal (the ascetic) துறவறவியல்
Chapters 25–37: compassion, refusing meat, tapas, truthfulness, not killing, impermanence, renunciation, knowledge of the real, and the uprooting of desire.
- 4Arattuppal IV: Ooliyal (destiny) ஊழியல்
Chapter 38, a single chapter on ūl, the force of past deeds, which Valluvar says is stronger than anything one may devise against it.
- 5Porutpal I: Arasiyal (royalty) அரசியல்
Chapters 39–63: the qualities of a king, learning, listening, wisdom, choosing counsel, knowing time and place, just and cruel rule, spies, energy and courage in trouble.
- 6Porutpal II: Amaichiyal (ministers) அமைச்சியல்
Chapters 64–73: the minister, the power of speech, purity and firmness in action, the envoy, conduct before kings, reading the face, and facing an assembly without fear.
- 7Porutpal III: Angaviyal (the limbs of the state) அங்கவியல்
Chapters 74–95: the country, the fort, earning wealth, the army and its pride, friendship tested and false, folly, hatred, the enemy within, women, wine, gambling and medicine. Parimelazhagar counts the ministers’ chapters within this iyal.
- 8Porutpal IV: Ozhibiyal (miscellany) ஒழிபியல்
Chapters 96–108: good birth, honour, greatness, perfect goodness, courtesy, wealth that does no good, shame, raising one’s family, farming, poverty, begging and baseness.
- 9Kamattuppal I: Kalaviyal (secret love) களவியல்
Chapters 109–115: the first sight, reading the glance, the joy of union, praise of her beauty, the declaration of love, the end of reserve, and rumour in the town.
- 10Kamattuppal II: Karpiyal (wedded love) கற்பியல்
Chapters 116–133: separation, wasting with longing, weeping eyes, pallor, solitude, dreams, the cruel evening, the heart spoken to, reunion, and at the last the lovers’ quarrel and its sweetness.
Famous verses
அகர முதல எழுத்தெல்லாம் ஆதி பகவன் முதற்றே உலகு
As the letter A is the first of all letters, so the Primal Bhagavan is the first of the world.Tirukkural 1 (Kadavul Vazhthu)
கற்க கசடறக் கற்பவை கற்றபின் நிற்க அதற்குத் தக
Learn what is worth learning, and learn it without flaw; then live by what you have learnt.Tirukkural 391 (Kalvi, Learning)
எப்பொருள் யார்யார்வாய்க் கேட்பினும் அப்பொருள் மெய்ப்பொருள் காண்ப தறிவு
Whatever is said, from whosever mouth you hear it, wisdom is to see the truth of the thing itself.Tirukkural 423 (Arivudaimai, Wisdom)
பிறப்பொக்கும் எல்லா உயிர்க்கும் சிறப்பொவ்வா செய்தொழில் வேற்றுமை யான்
Birth is alike for all living beings; worth differs by the difference in the deeds they do.Tirukkural 972 (Perumai, Greatness)
உழுதுண்டு வாழ்வாரே வாழ்வார்மற் றெல்லாம் தொழுதுண்டு பின்செல் பவர்
Those who live by the plough are the ones who truly live; all others eat by bowing to them and walk behind.Tirukkural 1033 (Uzhavu, Farming)
Ten medieval commentaries, Parimelazhagar’s the most read; translated into dozens of Indian and world languages, and quoted by statesmen and courts alike.