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K373 and K374 of the THIRUKKURAL: Translated with Commentary

The poet's name, THIRUVALLUVAR [Thiru = Sacred and Valluvar = the name of the priesthood caste of the « Pariah » (whom Mahatma Gandhi prefered to call "Harijans", "the children of God"), is very probably a misnomer. His name is sometimes followed by the collective title of « Nayanar », a term signifying religious Siva Bhakti poets and whose work had been anthologised first in the collection : TEVARAM by Nambi Andar Nambi of the Xth to XIth century CE. No one knows his real name nor his origins, whereabouts and birth circumstances.  G.U.Pope, one of the few great foreign scholars of Tamil, began his missionary work in the enclave of Mayilapur (meaning "the township/bourgade of peacocks" in the city of Madras/Chennai, during the nineteenth century) . The term « pariah » denotes something most derogatory, for in the Hindu caste hierarchical system these members of the lowest non-caste were treated as "defiled", not worthy of being seen or being found in their company, due to their having to handle corpses, serving  as "night soil men", employed in the tanning of animal skins and in other extreme menial duties and functions -- all considered "un-holy" by the upper castes]. Pope follows the claims of the popular tradition in thinking the poet lived and grew up there for there is to be found a temple consecrated to the poet in Mayilapur. Others like S. Padmanabhan and the Tamil Nadu authorities associate his name with Kanyakumari, the southernmost district of the Tamil peninsula on the strength of certain words in the Thirukkural which were in usage in the area during the first millenium of our era. Yet, others - Tamil Christians in the majority - wish him to have imbibed Christian doctrines and teachngs at the feet of the martyred apostle St. Thomas who was assassinated in Mayilapur, obviously in the first century of the Christ's existence. Pope and the great missionary translators and interpretors of the kurals, such as, D. H. Drew, John Lazarus, F. W. Ellis, the ilustrious Italian Beschi, the German Graul and the Frenchman Ariel -- all pay him their profoundest respect and admiration while drawing attention to the tradition of ethical maxims in other literary cultures to which Thiruvalluvar may or may not have had cognisance. As usual, as in all such cases, a good deal of myth also willingly gets spun, absorbed and perpetuated like the story of how he was the illegitimate issue of caste-miscegenation, that is, between a Brahmin father and a "Pariah" mother. 
I have already in my previous posts shown how complicatedly arduous it is to compose a "kural"in the venba metre, the most difficult of the Tamil prosodic structures. Add to this the plan and structure of the whole composition, and it will become evident that no one who had not enjoyed the highest literary and mental capacities could have authored this oeuvre. 
Even the language the poet used was free of "sankriticisms", the principal linguistic influence over other languages in the sub-continent. According to Pope, himself, the language of the kural is a product of pure high Tamil. For instance, Tamils everywhere today would use innumerable words of Sanskrit or of other origins in their spoken or written forms like "kobam" for "anger" or "sadtchi" for "witness", but in the kural the poet employs "vekuli" and "kari" respectively, words of Tamil concoction. 
I, for myself, am convinced he was, as I said earlier on,  "unjustifiably oppressed". In that case, how has his work survived the ages. That is because he outsmarted them all. I have my own « theory » or conjecture or deduction about it all. (T. Wignesan)
 
K373: nunniya noolpala katpinum marrunthen
           unmai arivee mikum

In subtle learning manifold though versed men be,
The wisdom, truly his, will gain supremacy. (Transl. G.U.Pope)
Although a man may study the most polished treatises, the knowledge
which fate has decreed to him will still prevail. (Transl. Drew & Lazarus)

Even if one imbibes works from the most learned sources, knowledge that
is inherent* in him owing to fate will triumph (over the rest). 
[*in the sense of the inherited genetic code.]
(Transl. T. Wignesan) 

K374: iruveeru ulakatthu iyatkai
           thiruveeru thelliyar aathalum veeru

Two-fold the fashion of the world: some live in fortune's light;
While other some have souls in wisdom's radiance light. (Transl. G.U. Pope)
There are (through fate) two different natures in the world; hence the difference 
(observable in men) in (their acquisition of) wealth, and in their attainment of knowledge. (Transl. Drew & Lazarus)

The nature of the world is such that fate provides some with the ability to acquire wealth and others knowledge. (Transl. T. Wignesan)

© T. Wignesan - Paris, 2017
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