Jain Spirit 2004 10 No 20

Author(s): Jain Spirit UK
Publisher: UK Young Jains

Page 41

66
There is
none who
has given
such a
treasure
of wisdom
like him
MK Gandhi
""
Jesus' Sermon on the Mount. In fact, other religions also claim it as their own. The Jains proclaim it theirs, saying that it expresses precisely their ideals of non-violence, of dharma, of asceticism, vegetarianism and other aspects of Jainism. Many are surprised to find that the Tirukural is still sworn upon in the courts of law in South India's state of Tamil Nadu, just as the Christian Bible and Muslim Koran are sworn on elsewhere. Just as the Sikhs worship their holy text, the Adi Granth, the devout Hindus venerate the weaver's scripture in temples and home shrines with a sacred ceremony, called pooja. Albert Schweitzer, the medical missionary and Christian theologian in Africa, considered it one of the grandest achievements of the human mind, writing: "Like the Buddha and the Bhagavad Gita, the Kural desires inner freedom from the world and a mind free from hatred. You find the quintessence of the best gems of thoughts in the Kural, a living ethic of love and liberation." Indeed, many claim that the Tirukural is man's earliest statement of the ostensibly contemporary ecumenical tenets, for it is free of the dogmatic bias that commonly attends religious scriptures. The Father of modern India, Mahatma Gandhi took to these verses in his own spiritual life, telling his people, "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."
One of the hallmarks of Saint Tiruvalluvar's genius was his ability to deftly define and subtly delineate the eternal spiritual path (Sana-tana Dharma) to all men equally, never limiting his audience to a sectarian view. Even when he speaks directly of God, whom he addresses as Adi Bhagavan, Iraivan and Kadavul - ancient Tamil words for Supreme God Siva - the weaver's broad heart praises not the God of this or that faith, but sings his panegyric to 'God Primordial', 'the Incomparable One', 'the Gracious One' or 'the Compassionate One: In other words, everyone's God.
Having honoured the Worshipful One, the weaver then praises rain, for without rain's gift of life all the human experience would be impossible. The third chapter speaks of renunciation (sannyasa), for to him the renunciate monk is the most noble exemplar of humanity, the highest of souls, the minister of Sana-tana
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Dharma, nowadays called Hinduism in English, Indu Samayam in Tamil, Hindutva in Sanskrit, Hindouisme in French, Hinduismo in Spanish, Religione Hindú in Italian, and Hinduismus in German. He exalts renunciation as a way of life opposed to that of the householder, encouraging ardent souls, seeking the realisation of their own True Being, to take up their faith with vigour and to live the detached, selfless life of a renunciate. He also describes non-involvement in the joys and sorrows of the world in minute detail in other chapters. Without giving us a hint of what he is up to, the weaver has thus defined in his first three chapters the three fundamental dimensions of the Saiva Siddhanta philosophy: God, world and soul, known in Tamil as Pati, pasam and pasu. It is indicative of his subtle literary style that Tiruvalluvar begins the very first verse with the first letter of the Tamil alphabet 'A' and ends the last line of verse 1,330 with the final letter 'N', quietly informing us that he has covered all human concerns from A to Z.
In Tamil literature, kural denotes the very difficult and disciplined venpa meter in which the verses were written. Each verse is extremely short, containing only two lines of seven measures. In fact, it is the shortest form of stanza in the Tamil language. In many ways these couplets are similar to the Sanskrit shloka. The scripture consists of 133 chapters with each chapter elucidating a different aspect of human virtue or human fault. There are ten couplets per chapter, making a total of 1,330 couplets.
Although it has been translated into English by many scholars, the Tirukural has never been widely known in the Western world. There is a similar work, written in modern times by the Syrian-born American mystic Kahlil Gibran (1883-1931), called The Prophet, which has become a beloved classic. Everyone knows and loves this masterful work. The Prophet parallels the Tirukural in many ways. Both books speak in profound yet understandable terms of love and friendship, of health and death, of joy and sorrow. It is our hope that the TirukuralWeaver's Wisdom-will find its place beside The Prophet and be known by the wider world as the gem that it is, showing how the Tamil Saivites have, to this very day, maintained their heritage, rich culture and religious fervour. In the many days to come, the world will