About The Book

The whole book is written in a couplet, having only two sentences; with the first sentence having 4 words and the second sentence having 3 words. In total only 7 words per couplet, in the above manner. Such a prose arrangement is called as a “Kural” in the Tamil language.

Many authors and poets of the Tamil language have used this form of prose for their writing, and much of it is still in existence with us. Of these, the “Thirukkural” is the most famous and well known among the Tamil public. The rest of the kural’s of other authors have now been slowly forgotten. The Kural of Avvai; is another treatise but fully on religion.

The word “Thiru” in Tamil commands greatness, respect and honour. This is attached as a suffix to proper nouns as a mark of recognition and dignity. Thus, the meaning given to the book “Thirukkural” is “an honorary 7 worded, two sentenced couplet”.

This book has 133 chapters, with 10 verses for each chapter, having a total of 1330 verses. The book is divided into 3 sections – namely “virtue – character – romance”. The English translations of these words are not exact as the Tamil words used for the 3 sections “Aram – Porul – Imbam” has a broad conceptual meaning, that does not have a synonym even in the Tamil language. Thus it is pointless to argue or to discuss the “correctness” of the translation provided by any learned ones.

Our small explanatory note deals and explains only with the first chapter of the book, which we have translated as “In Praise of God”. This chapter is considered as part of the first section under the heading “Aram”. Various views and commentaries already exist for theses verses and we are adding one more “angle” to these already existing commentaries and explanations.