The Tirukkural or Thirukkural (Tamil: திருக்குறள், literally Sacred Verses), or shortly the Kural, is a classic Tamil text consisting of 1330 couplets or kurals, dealing with the everyday virtues of an individual.Considered one of the greatest works ever written on ethics and morality, chiefly secular ethics, it is known for its universality and non-denominational nature.It was authored by Valluvar, also known in full as Thiruvalluvar. The text has been dated variously from 300 BCE to 7th century CE. The traditional accounts describe it as the last work of the third Sangam, but linguistic analysis suggests a later date of 450-500 CE.
Thiruvalluvar
Thirukkural (or the Kural) is a collection of 1330 Tamil couplets organised into 133 chapters. Each chapter has a specific subject ranging from "ploughing a piece of land" to "ruling a country". According to the LIFCO Tamil-Tamil-English dictionary, the Tamil word Kural means Venpa verse with two lines.
By the turn of the twenty-first century, the Kural had already been translated to more than 37 world languages, with at least 24 translations in English language alone, by both native and non-native scholars. By 2014, the Kural had been translated to more than 82 languages, with 57 versions available in English.
It is believed that he was born either in Thiru Mylai (Mylapore) Chennai in Tamil Nadu or in ThirunainarKuruchi, a village in Kanyakumari District of Tamil Nadu.Thiruvalluvar is thought to have lived sometime between the 4th century BC and the 1st century BC.
Structure of the book. The Tirukkural is structured into 133 chapters, each containing 10 couplets (or kurals), for a total of 1,330 couplets. The 133 chapters are grouped into three sections, or "books": Book I: Aṟam (Tamil: அறத்துப்பால், Aṟattuppāl) (Dharma) dealing with virtue (Chapters 1-38).
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