Thirukkural is a wisdom literature
expressed in concise aphorisms on subjects of varying nature concerning worldly
life. To achieve this, no doubt the author has employed the most difficult and
terse meters of all, called the '
kural' venba which has to be in only seven
metrical feet of less than two lines. As Berriendale Keith (1993) would say:
"
India has always delighted in the expression in verse of pithy
observations on life and morals". Globally, such pithy maxims of words
of wisdom are not necessarily limited to literary works of aphoristic nature,
but also appear in the midst of works of prosodic nature (e.g. Panchatantra,
Gulistan), kāvya nature (e.g. Works of Shakespeare & Kālidāsa), epics (e.g.
Mahabharatha, Cilappadikāram), sayings (e.g. Analects, Hadith) and even
religious scriptures (e.g. Bible, Guru Grant Sahib, Bhagavad Gita).
During my 12 years of acquaintance with various literary works of the world,
I would every now and then come across verses or sayings that strikingly
resemble the Kural. Sometimes this would be in content of the message, or at
times in style and even wordplay. The objective here is to bring together all
such parallels and present them serially for every possible couplet in Thirukkural.
While we expect to find striking parallels between Thirukkural and literary
works of the Tamil country and other Indian works in Sanskrit, Prakrit and
Pali, there is also surprisingly a high percentage of Kural-like verses in
literary works in Persian (e.g. Sa'di's Gulistan), Chinese (e.g. Confucian
Analects), Hebrew (e.g. Biblical Proverbs), Latin (e.g. Moral Sayings of Syrus)
and other languages. Since Kural is an ethical work, it is only natural to find
similarities with all these classical wisdom literatures of the world. We
have to bear in mind that these distant parallels are definitely not
borrowings. The objective here is to present the list of similar verses without
trying to interpret the nature of borrowings or the influence one upon the other.
There are also proverbs in different languages which are nothing but
centuries of accumulated words of wit and wisdom. Though the Kural is not an
anthology of proverbs, we do find some striking parallels with different
proverbs of the world. These also have been taken into consideration here,
though the list still incomplete and many more proverbs are yet to be
considered for inclusion here. While writing about the didactical works of
India, Berriendale Keith (1993) wrote: "
They are not to be compared to
proverbs racy of the soil preserved in their primitive form; they are, as in
the maxims of Phokylides in Greece, the turning of the raw material by poets
into finished products". The raw material Valluvar has employed for
composing his couplets might well have been the words of wisdom already in
circulation in his native land or the ideas he got from reading other literary
works that were available to him during his period. It is evident that he had access to some of the Indian classics on polity (Niti Shastras) when he says "
Books declare
that a fort should have these four: Height, breadth, strength and difficult access" (Kural 743). There are also other evidences to
support this view within the Kural itself as we see the author intermittently
referring to the views or statements of earlier times by stating "they
say" or "it is said". Just cite two couplets here:
Desire, they say, is the seed of ceaseless
birth for all things living at all times. (PS) (Kural 361)
They say: Numbers and other one called Letters are the two
eyes to live with. * (VC) (Kural 392)
This is not only true with the Kural but also many other literary
classics. Kautilya refers to works on Polity that existed before his
Arthasastra, Vatsyayana mentions about works on Kama before his Kamasutra,
Kalhana who wrote Rajatarangini tells us that he was not the first to write on
the chronicle on kings. This is just like the Tamils who believe in the
existence of Agathiyar's grammar before the advent of Tholkappiyar's grammar.
Vast majority of the couplets in Thirukkural are the author's own creations as
I have managed to find out parallels for only about 50% of the 1330 couplets.
And even within these 700 odd verses, the parallels are found in literary works
of non-Indian origin. This goes on to show that many of them are mere
coincidences which is only expected when comparing two ethical works no matter
of which distant land they belong to. Otherwise, how else would one explain the
presence of Kural-like verses in Biblical Proverbs, sayings of Publilius Syrus
and Shaik Sa'di's works? There are scholars who have tried to attribute
Valluvar's teachings to the influence of one sage or another. Reacting to those
who think that sentiments like forgiveness and love in Thirukkural are a result
of Valluvar's leanings to the preachings of the followers of St. Thomas,
Sundaram (1989) says "
It is not necessary to attribute whatever is best
in the Kural to foreign influence". The ideas of compassion and love
were very much there in this holy land even before the advent of Christianity
and religions like Buddhism have only inculcated these values.
P.S. Sundaram says there is evidence in the Kural of Valluvar's indebtedness
to Manu's Dharmasastra, Kamandaka's Nitisara, Kautilya's Arthasastra and
certain Ayurvedic treatises all written in Sanskrit. Except the case of
Nitisara, this opinion appears to be true as we see many verses of similar
content and nature between Kural and Manu Smiriti or Arthasastra. Nitisara is
dated 700 AD (Keith, 1993) and if we are to consider Valluvar to have been
influenced by this work, the Kural will have to be dated much later than this
work. Interestingly there are a few couplets that are strikingly similar to
those found in Nitisara (Couplet 384 with
Nitisara,
IV.24; couplet 386 & 387 with
Nitisara, XV.49;
couplet 498 with
Nitisara, XIII.79; couplet 561 with
Nitisara, II.37; couplet 733 with Nitisara, IV.55). Since
Kamandakya himself expresses his gratitude to Chanakya or Kautilya in his
opening verses, it remains to be seen if parallels for these verses on polity
are found in Arthasastra itself. Only then can we come to a conclusion on the
possible influence of one over the other.
This is not the first time an attempt has been made to compare the Kural
with other works for similarities. Many scholars have compared the Kural with
ethical works in Sanskrit, Chinese, Greek, Latin , Tamil (Thirunavukkarasu,
1977), Hebrew (Kamatchi Srinivasan, 1979) and so on. Probably the first work to
compare the Kural with all ethical literatures of India was that of
Thirunavukkarasu (1978). Such works continue to be produced but they all
restrict their comparisons to one or two particular work. S.M. Diaz in his two volumes
of elaborate commentary on Thirukkural compared the couplets with verses from
various sources. Though he promised a lot, it only contained parallel quotes
from the Bible, Gita, Qur'an, few European works and Tamil literatures. Even
this was not exhaustive. To the best of my knowledge, this it the first time an
attempt has been made to produce parallels from all known literary works of the
world, including proverbs and popular quotes of the world for every couplet in
Thirukkural. A fraction of this comparison had already appeared in "
Forumhub"
discussion forum under the thread "
A kural a day" wherein parallels for
about 171 couplets were presented. That was in 2001 and in eight years times,
not only the number of couplets have increased nearly to 700 but also fresh
additions made to those 171 already identified.
Major literary works taken up for comparison and presentation here are:
1) Works in Sanskrit:
- Didactic works: Sringarasatakam,
Nitisatakam, Vairagyasatakam, Nitidvisastika
- Scriptures of Hinduism: Bhagavad Gita,
Rig-Yajur-Artharva vedas, Upanishads, Brahmana
- Kāvyās: Works of Kālidāsa
- Sastras: Arthasastra, Nitisastra,
Nitisara, Manu Smriti
- Fables: Panchatantra, Hitopadesa
2) Works in Tamil:
- Didactic works: Naladiyar, Four works of
Avvaiyar, Innā Nārpathu, Iniyavai Nārpathu, Kalavazhi Nārpathu, Kār
Narpathu, Thirikadukam, Nanmanikkadikai, Sirupanjamoolam, eladi,
- Sangam literature: Kalithogai, Kurunthogai,
Ainkurunuru, Purananuru, Akananuru, Natrinai, Paripadal, Pathitruppathu,
Pathuppattu.
- Bhakti literature: Panniru Thirumarai
(Devāram, Thiruvāsagam, Thirumandiram etc.), Nālāyira Divyaprabandam
(Thiruvāimozhi etc.)
- Epics: Cilappadikāram, Manimekalai,
Ceevakacinthāmani, Kambarāmāyanam,
3) Works in Prakrit:
- Hala's Gathasaptasati, Jayavallabha's
Vajjalaggam
- Kundakunda's Ashta Pahuda
4) European works:
- English: Works Shakespeare, HW Longfellow,
Wordsworth, William Penn, Goethe, Thomas Fuller, Bonaparte,
- Ethical works: Maxims of Rochenfaucauld,
Sayings of Publilius Syrus, Baltasar Gracian, Hesiod, Heracles of
Euripides,
- Plays, epics: Plato
5) Chinese classics:
- Confucian Analects, Great Learning,
Doctrine of Mean
- Tao Te Ching, Mencius, Sun Tzu, Chuang Tzu
6) Islamic sources:
- Persian: Works of Jalaluddin Rumi (e.g.
Masnavi), works of Shaik Sa'di (e.g. Bustan, Gulistan)
- Arabic: Qur'an, Hadith
7) Buddhist works:
- Pali: Dhammapada, Udanavarga, Sutta
Nipata, Udana, Itivuttaka, Kuddakapada, Samyutta Nikaya
- Sanskrit: Buddhacharita, Works of
Nagarjuna, Lankavatarasutra
- Tibetan: Tibetan Dhammapada (Udanavarga),
Works of Milarepa, Percepts of the Gurus, Saskya
Pandita
- Others:
Charyapada
8) Other religious scriptures and anthologies
- Guru Grant Sahib, Zend Avesta
- Holy Bible, Bahai writings
- Sama Suttam, Pearls of Jaina Wisdom
9) Other Dravidian languages:
- Kannada: Works of Ponna, Sarvajna,
- Telugu: Verses of Vemana,
10) Works in Hindi and other languages.:
- Hindi: Dohas, Bijaks and Sakis of Kabir
Das, Bihari Sattasai, Poems of Ghananand
- Assamese: Dakar Bashan
11) Proverbs:
- Tamil proverbs, Assamese proverbs,
- Myanmar, Malay proverbs
- English, Italian proverbs
- African, Arabian, Russian, Chinese
proverbs
12) Miscellaneous:
- Works of Swami Vivekananda, Sri Aurobindo,
Acharya Vinoba Bhave
- Works of Kalil Gibran (The prophet, Sand
and Foam)
References:
- Diaz, S.M. 2000.
Tirukkural. Volume 1 and 2. Ramalinga Adigalar Foundation, Coimbatore.
- Keith, A.B. 1993.
Gnomic and didactic poetry. In: A History of Sanskrit Literature. Motilal
Banarsidas Publishers, New Delhi. page 227
- Kamatchi
Srinivasan, 1979. திருக்குறளும் விவிலியமும். Madurai Kamaraj University. 346 pages
- Sundaram, P.S.
1989. Tiruvalluvar: The Kural. Penguin Classics. 168 pages
- Thirunavukkarasu,
K.D. 1977. Tirukkural: A Didactic Literature. University of Madras.423
pages
- Thirunavukkarasu,
K.D. 1978. திருக்குறளும் இந்திய அறநூல்களும். மணியகம், சென்னை.
