The real greatness of Tirukkural is its survival, even after the onslaughts of many heterogeneous creeds. In the last two thousand years, it never failed to attract any scholar or lover of wisdom. They have glorified Valluvar and his monumental magnum opus "The Kural" with scintillating tributes. It is true that the great poet of modern times Mahakavi Subramaniya Bharathi aptly said that "Tamilnadu gave Valluvar to the world! And thereby gained the everlasting fame!"The purpose of this anthology is to bring out the Rev. Dr. G. U. Pope's Tirukkural translation in English along with the erudite Tamil Scholar Dr. Mu. Varadarajan's Tamil commentary for the benefit of scholars and students. We have compiled and published Rev. G. U. Pope's English translation of the Tirukkural is a fitting tribute to this great classic, a valuable contribution to English and a great service to Tamil. This is a labour of love which will earn for the author the admiration and gratitude of the Tamil-loving public. Dr. Mu. Varadarajan reveals a fine grasp of the genius of Tiruvalluvar and commands the most refined temperament to render into lucid commentary the terse and highly condensed poetical expressions of Tiruvalluvar. May this work bring a great flood of many-sided enlightenment and delight to all.As a great thinker, of Tiruvalluvar actually transgresses the frontiers of language and creed. His scripture of Universalism has induced to recognize him as one of the great philosophers, to be placed in the midst of Socrates, Kant and Confucius, the illustrious moral philosophers of the mankind. In the sphere of political science and public administration, Valluvar seems supreme in his treatment and humanistic approach than Aristotle, Kautilya, Kamantaka, Sukkra, Machiavelli and Harold Laski.
About the Author: Tiruvalluvar, the great savant and seer, the poet and philosopher of Tamilnadu, is the pinnacle of Tamil wisdom. He has been acclaimed as one of the eminent poet-philosophers of the world. Tirukkural is the masterpiece of Valluvar, which is a minuscule work in size, contains 133 chapters on different aspects of life, and each chapter consists of ten couplets. Tirukkural appropriately called the Veda or the book of universal importance. Each couplet is called Kural venpa, which is one of the basic metres of Tamil prosody. This form of verse is popularly known in English as couplets. This work has been generally divided into three parts, of which the first deals with Aram or Virtue, the moral values of life, the second discusses the Porul, socio economic values of life, and the third one Inpattuppal or Kaamattuppaal or Love, depicts the psychological values of life. This third part of Tirukkural appears entirety different in its form, spirit and presentation from the first two parts of this classic. There are twenty five chapters; each in turn contains ten dramatic monologues. In this part Tiruvalluvar plays the role of a creative artist. But in the other two parts, we find Valluvar as moral philosopher and a political scientist. Only in the third part, Valluvar portrays the fascinating aspects of lovers, the Akam tradition which he has inherited from his ancestral Tamil savants. No significant tribute is needed for the supremacy of its subject-matter, than the fact that it has been translated into a number of languages of the world. Perhaps, it can be claimed that there is no other work of non-religious nature, which stand in comparison with Tirukkural. In the range of subject-matter and the brevity of the couplets, Kural excels the other didactic literature of the world. There are a number of significant aspects of Tirukkural which have been pointed by the scholars of the globe. Of which, the captivating feature which arrested the attention of the devotees of different religious creeds, adore Valluvar, as one of their own sages. There is a temple, significantly devoted to Tiruvalluvar in Mylapore, in the heart of the city of Chennai. The Rationalists of Tamilnadu, identify Tiruvalluvar, as their own master of ancient times. He has been placed on a high pedestal by them as the earliest free thinker of Tamilnadu.