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Ancient Precepts for a Perfect Life
by Satguru Sivaya Subramuniyaswami
Dr. Albert Schweitzer
"There hardly exists in the literatue of the world a collection of maxims in which we find such lofty wisdom."
Mahatma Gandhi
"Only a few of us know the name of Tiruvalluvar. The North Indians do not know the name of the great saint. There is none who has given such a treasure of wisdom like him."
M. Ariel
"The Kural is the masterpiece of Tamil literature one of the highest and purest expressions of human thought."
Tiru Naganar
"Tirukural alone is enough to edify the world. It contains all things and there is nothing which it does not contain."
Parmacharya Bodhinatha, Saiva Siddhanta Yoga Order; Kauai, Hawaii
It is certainly inspiring to release to a broad readership what we have joyously toiled at for some twenty years. Our aim has been to render the poetry of the Kural in a way that its wisdom can easily be encompassed in everyday living, for the Kural is not a scripture to merely be read or memorized but rather a scripture designed to influence, guide and make more cultured our actions each day. The final editing of the Kural has been like polishing a hand-carved granite statue with a yet finer chisel thereby making the features even more refined.
Acharya Palaniswami, Saiva Siddhanta Yoga Order; Kauai, Hawaii
Who could have imagined a simple, single sentence spoken at our ashram in Alaveddy, Sri Lanka in 1979 would take two decades to fulfill? Yet it did. Gurudeva's order to "bring the Tirukural into modern English" seemed at the time so unimposing a request, yet it changed and molded us for all these many years. One is transformed by such an effort. Thousands of hours of deliberating. Thousands of hours in the temple, in the quiet hours before dawn each day discussing subtle meanings. Thousands more of crafting and changing and refining and redefining the phrases which strayed too far from the Tamil and had to be reined back, then strayed too far from modern sensibility and had to be redrafted. Then days and weeks and months of editing, followed by days and weeks and months of critique from good minds.
But mostly, it was Gurudeva's direction that we should know the mind of the venerable weaver, and to do that, to truly comprehend him, we had to live as his culture would have men live, to change, to grow, to learn the subtle art of being human. The happiest revelation this: that twenty years of work on this little book has brought us to the place where these are not so much verses we strive to understand and follow, but verses that describe our life as it is lived. This is an honoring of that great Saiva culture which gave rise to this humble weaver and his lofty thoughts, thoughts which are as profound today as any you can find in any language, in any culture.
Acharya Kumarswami, Saiva Siddhanta Yoga Order; Kauai, Hawaii
It was a joy and a sadhana to sit with Gurudeva and Palaniswami each day for several weeks on our powerbook network by the ocean, pondering and relishing each verse that had been so diligently rendered into English during the past 20 years. This was a humble polishing process: the endeavor to perfect prefection, to seek out unclarities, abiguities, or find a better turn of phrase. Gurudeva read each verse aloud, and we all asked ourselves, does the meaning leap out at us? Is it perfectly clear? We dove into the mind of the weaver as best we could to unravel the questions, and into the inner wealth of our swami translators, as Palaniswami gave out the meaning, read from other noteworthy translations and cited the Tamil lexicon. Linguistic wealth was all around. Upon our second reading, we drew upon the critique of an elder Polish librarian, who prefers to not be mentioned, but who has helped us in this and other books in recent years, to make the perfect even more perfect, and make it even more pleasing to the ear.
Sri Chandrasekharendra Saraswati:
I thought about the question, which is superior, Sanskrit or Tamil. Sanskrit and Tamil are equal in their greatness. We cannot say that the one is superior to the other. The reason is that the Vedas are in Sanskrit and now in Tamil we have the Kural. If there were nothing equal to the Vedas in Tamil, Sanskrit should have been said to be superior. Now the Kural is present in Tamil as the equal of the Vedas. Both languages -- Sanskrit and Tamil are now seen to be equally great
H.H. Sri Kanchi Kamakoti Peetadhipathi Jagadguru Sri Jayendra Saraswati Sankaracharya Swamiga:
TIRUVALLUVAR, the post-saint, rather the Saint-Poet lived in the Hamlet (now city of Chennai) about 2000 years ago. "TIRUKKURAL", the work of TIRUVALLUVAR is a book for Universal aceptance-Ulaka-p-PoduMarai. The very first votive offering is unto the Omnipotent. "Adi Bhagvan Mudatre Ulagu" (Kural) and reflects the very words found in the Isavasya Upanishad ("Isavasyam-Idam Sarvam"). The aphorisms (couplets) are full of practical wisdom touching on all aspects of an Ideal life. Though, there have been a few english translations, the present one is excellent in that the verses are lucid and in simple style. For example, in the chapter "Hospitality" Kural 87 is beautifully put "Charity's merits cannot be measured by gifts given. It is measured by measuring the receiver's merits. Similarly, Kural 226 under the heading "Charity" is strikkingly forceful "Relieving the ravaging hunger of the poor is a right use for wealth men have obtained". Satguru Sivaya Subramuniyaswami of International reknown has done a momumental service in having "TIRUKKURAL" translated in English so that this work of wisdom from the Weaver reaches a very large number of aspirants. Pujya Sri Sankaracharya Swamigal of Kanchi Kamakoti Peetam Blesses this attempts.
