About the Book

Thiru Kural, the immortal didactic scripture also esteemed as Uttar Veda or Later Vedas, was composed by the ancient Tamil saint-poet Thiru Valluvar in the 2nd century A.D. it has also got the reputation of being the highest translated scripture of the world in some 75 Indian and foreign languages. Its whole-sale verse translation in Oriya was done by this author in the year 1993.

It is astonishing to find the saint-poet deal with; as many as 133 topics of primary human interest on Dharma (Piety), Arhta (Economics and A Kama (Love not just) in ten couplets under each which are as much valid today as they were in ancient times.

The reader is invited to the treated of the illuminating scripture in the pages of this book.

About the Author

The author, Shri Gananath Das, retired from the Indian Administrative Service in the year 1972. since then he has engaged himself in the study of various saint poets starting with the famous saint poet, Kabir Das, of the 15th century A.D.

On Kabir his works include Life and Philosophy of the Saint Poet in Oriya, and translation of five hundred of his couplets in English Verse, in three volumes: the first of one hundred published by the Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan of Bombay in 1992, the second of three hundred published by Motilal Banarasi Das of Delhi in 1991 and the third of one hundred published by Writers Workshop of Calcutta in 1992, followed by Sayings of Kabir published by the same publisher in 1993.

In 1992 he published his translation of one hundred songs of Guru Nanak Dev as 'Nanak Satak' in Oriya and 100 Love Songs of Kabir in English Verse which was published by Abhinav Publications of New Delhi.

In 1994 he published his Oriya Verse translation of the entire Thiru Kural, the immortal work of the Tamil Saint Poet Thiru Valluvar, consisting of 1330 couplets in 133 chapters.

In 1994 he published his Essays on Kabir published but the Writers Workshop of Calcutta consisting of indepth studies of the Saint Poet's sayings on as many as 22 topics.

In the meantime he has completed his "Readingss from Bhagabata", being English Verse translation of over 150 Sayings of the famous scripture originally composed by Vyasa Deva and Translated into Oriya Verse by Saint Poet Jagannath Das of Pancha Sakih fame.

After decades of sterile work in Government offices Mr. Gananath Das, on his retirement from the Indian Administrative Service, has devoted himself fully to the study of the saint-poets whose teachings have laid the foundation of the collective ethos of India. In order to share the spiritual insight he gained from such studies with his fellowmen who have had no direct access to the original, Mr. Das has been interpreting and translating the thoughts of these highly evolved souls into Oriya, his mother tongue, and English. Having thus rendered Kabir and Nanak he has turned his attention to the ancient Tamil genius Thiru-Valluvar. His Oriya translation of Kural has since been published by the ‘Bidyapuri’ Publishers of Cuttack.

Thirukkural has been written in couplets ten of which form a chapter, there being in all 133 chapters. They have been arranged in three books, the First Book being on “Dharma”, the Second on “Artha” and the Third one on “Love”. Each chapter is like a poem on any aspect of the foregoing human activities, like devotion to God, ascetic life, family life, compassion, charity, kingship, military spirit, friendship, gambling, love etc. The style is terse, epigrammatical. This may be as much due to the metre used as to the form of expression. The word ‘Kural’ in Tamil means anything short and in literature it refers to a poetic form using the shortest possible metre.

Thirukkural follows the ancient prescription of the sages for attainment of salvation or release from the cycle of deaths and births through the modality of “Dharma”, “Artha” and “Kama” and writes its own code. It is, in fact, a ‘treatise’ on the art of living; a set of wholesome principles or counsels for the various sections of the society for a harmonious collective living.

According to many scholars Thirukkural belongs to the period of Sangam literature. Sangam was ‘a college or assembly of poets’ held under the patronage of a king or an eminent landlord. The literature produced by these assemblies was compiled in the period spanning over 300 A.D. to 600 A.D. “But, parts of this literature look back to at least the second century A.D.” About its age Mr. C. Rajagopalachari, the scholar-statesman who is better known as Rajaji, says, “It is generally accepted as belonging to a period anterior to the second century A.D. Some scholars place it in the first century B.C.”

The Sangam literature can broadly be divided into two groups: narrative and didactic. The narrative texts are works of poetry that glorifies heroes of the time and their exploits in wars and cattle raids which were much too frequent. They refer to the custom of setting up war memorials, a kind of stone structures on death of the heroes and as such, echo the first couplet of chapter 78 of the Kural on Valour which says, “Do not challenge my commander. Many are those who having stood against him stand now in stone.” “The didactic texts cover the early centuries of the Christian Era and prescribe a code of conduct not only for the king and courtiers but also for various social groups and occupations.” Thirukkural belongs to the didactic category.

Mr. Das has selected 290 of the 1330 verses of the Kural for translation. There is at least one verse from each chapter, in the selection. A few chapters of the book were translated into English for the first time by a Madras Civil Servant (Mr. F.W. Ellis) in the early years of the 19th century A.D. Towards the end of the same century, Dr. G.U. Pope rendered it into English verse for the first time. The nineteenth century English used by Dr. Pope is rather involved and at times obscure, for which modern readers find it difficult to read. Mr. K. Sreenivasan, in the introduction to his translation of Thirukkural published by the Bharatiya Vidya Bhawan, Bombay, has cited an example of the language used by Dr. Pope in his translation which reads: