Chapter One - Verse one

Ahara muthala yezut’thalaam aathi
Pahavan muthatrary ulagu
(Sorry unable to place the Tamil version here)

The Explanation

In expounding the first verse of the book, Thiruvalluvar has taken great pains to design it in such a way it explains the greatness of the Tamil language, the need for spirituality and the God concepts an individual needs to adhere to. This verse also cannot be adequately explained without the help of the Tamil book of grammar, the Tholkaappian. Most interpretations do not follow this system, but we have tried to look at it from this angle.

Ahara

The word “Ahara” is made up of two syllabus “A” and “haram”. This is a word very rarely used in any of the prose literature of the Tamil language. It is found only in books explaining the “grammarian systems” of the Tamil language. In this context, the Kural is one of the very rare instances where one finds this word “Aharam”, which is not a book on grammar.

This first word “Ahara” is only found only in one of the books of the Tamil literary world before the kural. This is in the Tamil grammar book of Tholkkapiam and many different verses are found in it. For our use, we will be selecting a few verses.

First, we will first refer to verses 203, 297, 298 and 310 of Tholkaapiam.

In all the above verses, only one meaning is provided for the joined syllabus “A” and “haram”. The syllable “haram” has a very distinct explanation, meaning “row”, while “A” demotes the section of the row.

Thus in verse 203, “Aharam” is explained as the “row of the alphabets starting from “A”. To reconfirm this explanation, one needs to look at the other following verses like 297 (Ukaram) 298 (Nakaram) 310 (MaKaram) and many other instances. All these mean “row of words” of the respective alphabets. There are very many such examples in Tholkkapium, but we are selecting only the simple verses.

Now there is a distinction between “written and sound producing” alphabets. This distinction is very unique to the arrangements of the Tamil alphabets in its language.

For this we look at the verses 55 to 57 of Tholkkapiam. Here it is clearly noted and explained that it means “sound” producing alphabets. Thus “Aharam” would mean “the row of words which start with the sound A”. Thus “Uharam” would mean “the row of words sounding U” and “Maharam” would mean “the row of words sounding Ma”.

Muthala
The second word in the sentence “muthala” means “pioneer”.
It can also mean the first one, the starting one or the initial one which all are synonyms.

Yezut’thalaam
The third word in the sentence is “yezut’thalaam”; which is made up of two separate words. “Yezithu” means written alphabets. An important note to this interpretation is that the word “Yezithu” is technically not used for spoken sound alphabets. It means written alphabets.

The other word is “Allam” is translated as “all”. Thus technically the word “yezut’thalaam” means “all written alphabets”. In this context of course it cannot be taken as to interpret any other languages except for the Tamil alphabets. This is an important context as “sol” means sounding alphabets while “yezuthu” means written alphabets

Hence in combining the second and third word in the kural, the most exact explanation should be “the pioneer of all the Tamil written alphabets”.

Now let us look what it means by “all the written Tamil alphabets”. Once again, only Tholkaapiam provides us the guide for this word. The opening verses of Tholkaapiam very clearly states that the Tamil alphabets are only 30.

The opening verse can be translated as follows.

“Written alphabets are
From the start of “Aharam”
To the end of “Naharam” 30 are reflected
Along with this structure comes 3 sound alphabets”

One needs to be very careful in translating and understanding the above meanings. In the Tamil language, the alphabets are written and pronounced exactly as how it is written. If one wants to alter the sound to a longer note, there are rules within the Tamil language of how one can do it. Thus Tamil is unique where the alphabets provide not only the sound but also the tonal length of the sound.

Of interest is the mention of 30 alphabets. It is later explained in the book that there are 12 vowels and 18 constants, thus making 30 alphabets. Thus a combination of these two (12 x 18) provides a total of 216 + 30 = 246 written alphabets.

Note: Many authors use the word "letters" instead of alphabet. This is wrong for each language has a different meaning for each "letter". In Chinses each letter is caked a character, because is carries a whole word. In Greek, a letter carries a whole concept example "alpha", while in English, many letters have been invented for symbols or signs. All these together are called letters, and not alphabets. Most important and what many people including many Tamils do not know is that Tamil have both separate "alphabets and letters". Letters are used to denote fractions and numbers and these cannot be termed as alphabets. Those who do not know Tamil tend to make this mistake.

247 Tamil alphabets
Now all of us know that the Tamil language has 247 written alphabets and not 246 written alphabets. Tholkaapian later goes on to explain the other single written alphabet, which is represented by three dots . Let us now look how these are named in the Tamil language.

Vowels are called as “Uyir” or Life while the constants are called “Mei” or True/Eternal. The Tamil words “Uyir and Mei” are very common words used in everyday language and it always means life and truth/eternal. Then, both the “Uyir and Mei” are joined to produce the “UyirMei” alphabets; which are 246 in number. The three dot alphabet is called “Aayutham”. In this literary context, it is to be explained as a “sound joining tool”.

Thus the Tamil alphabets are grouped as follows.

Aayutham - 1
Uyir - 12
Mei - 18
UyirMei - 216
Total 247 alphabets

Tamil is a very ancient language; one which is identified and accepted as a “classical language”. With such antiquity, specific words for “vowels” and “consonants” could have been coined, but the Tamils preferred to use the same word “life” which is used to also describe plant, animal and human life. Similarly the word “true/eternal” is used which also means wisdom, unwavering, unfaltering and so on. The term “sound joining tool” for the other alphabet, ayutham is also an interesting factor.

Thus the true explanation for the word ““yezut’thalaam” should mean - “Uyir” - “Mei – and “UyirMei” thus denoting all the 246 alphabets of the Tamil language, but leaving out the Aayutham as it is not included in the 30 alphabets or the derivatives of the 30 alphabets.

Now if we now place the first half sentence of the kural, a literal explanation/translation would be as follows:-

“Just like the row of alphabets with the sound A, being the pioneer of the
Uyir, Mei, and UyirMei, of the Tamil written alphabets….”

Now let us look at the second sentence

Aathi
The word “aathi” and “muthala” share the same meanings of “pioneer”, first one, the starting one or the initial one”. The only difference in the word “Aathi” is that a subtle meaning of “antiquity or ancient” added to it. Thus it would actually mean “the ancient pioneer”. This antiquity is usually used in reference to God. It needs to be mentioned here that this word also means our “solar sun”. Many have also used this meaning to explain this verse. We will however retain the meaning pioneer for this verse.

This is because, most of the Tamil literature where the antiquity of God is to be mentioned, the most common word used is “Aathi”.

Pahavan and the Pali Language
There is much debate if this word is a Tamil word or not. To go into this discussion, one needs to look at the language development of the Indian sub-continent of the era.

In Southern India, during the era when the Thirukkural was written, the languages of Kannada (Karnataka), Telengu (Andhra Pradesh) and Malaiyalam (Kerala) were not in existence. Tamil was the only written language for the whole of South India.

As for the Northern India, two major written scripts (not languages) were present. One was the Pali script and the other was the Sanskrit script. Technically there is no “Sanskrit” language as such. The Northern Indian Pali, was both a language and a script, while Sanskrit was only a script.

Over the years, the Pali writing was lost and absorbed into the Sanskrit script and eventually this became the so called “Sanskrit” language. Individually however, the different dialects started their own form of writing and many forms of “languages and writings” were formed. A similar evolvement also took place in the south of India. Finally, only the Vedic language retained the Sanskrit script, with much adulteration borrowed from the original Pali language.

Of interest to note is that Pali and Tamil languages initially used the same script with some minor differences. Tamil used the Tamil Grantha while Pali used the Pali Grantha. At times, Grantham is termed as the Brahmi script.


Pahavan
In view of this, it can be noted that many words were shared by both Pali and Tamil, as both were Dravidian languages. Thus at one era, there is a possibility that the word Pahavan was equally shared by Pali and Tamil.

Pahavan means God, and this cannot be a Vedic or Sanskrit word for in these languages, the word for God is Ishvara. This is the word (Ishvara) that is found in the Rig Vedas. The word Pahavan is not found in the Rig Vedas.

Muthatrary
The word “muthatray” has the same meaning with “muthala” but with difference in speech only. Thus it has similar meanings to “pioneer”, but as a verb, meaning initiator, architect, and planner and so on.

Ulagu
The word “ulagu” is a very common word and it has many meanings. In the context of the religion (or in relation to God) “ulagu” is usually referred to the souls. The other meaning of the word “ulagu” is “world”. For our interpretation, we will retain the meaning “souls”.

Ulagu and Religion
In the Tamil language the word “ulagu” has a much deeper meaning. In its true form “ulagu” is a non living element, thus “factually” it is wrong to use this word “ulagu” for a soul that has senses. Thus the word ulagu has another meaning which is a representation of a something that has “matter, life and mind”.

By this way, the souls are denoted as “ulagu” as they have “matter, life and mind”. We need to note that in the Tamil philosophy, only humans have “souls” while plants and animals do not have a soul. Thus here in Thirukkural, the word “ulagu” has to be interpreted as “matter, life and mind”.

Thus the second sentence means:- “the ancient pioneer God being the initiator of the matter, life and mind” (souls) . Now placing the whole sentence together, the first verse needs to be explained as such:-

“Just like the row of alphabets with the sound A, being the pioneer of the Uyir, Mei, and UyirMei, of the Tamil written alphabets so is the ancient pioneer God being the initiator of the “matter, life and mind” ( of the souls)”

Now there is final beauty in this verse. How come the sound “A” becomes the pioneer sound of all the 3 groups of the Tamil alphabets and what is its significance to the Tamil religious philosophy.

For this, let us look into the arrangement of the alphabets.
(Sorry - I am unable to place the Tamil alphabets yet - so wait till I learn how to place it in)

It can be seen from the above table that the Aayutham, which is not part of the initial 30 Tamil alphabets has the sound of the “first of the Uyir and the first of the Mei”. This is the ONLY alphabet that has this design in the Tamil alphabets thus having a separate name of itself.

Significance to the Siddhanta theology

The whole verse describes the relation of God with the soul in reference to the Tamil alphabets. God is outside the natural phenomenon, thus it is not represented within the Tamil alphabets, but the soul is linked with the three matters of this world, namely knowledge, life and matter.

The soul is represented by the Aayutham (with the three dots) thus is not officially within the 30 alphabets of the Tamil language, but it is the one which binds the three matters, namely the knowledge (Mei), the life (Yuir) and the UyirMei (Matter) for us to tangibly see the world.

But all these are created by God and the soul depends on all the three and yet is not part of the three. Just like the Aayutham, it is not part of the alphabets, but it is the source from which the alphabets appear to be seen. Thus God is the source of all the creation, just as how the soul reflects all the alphabets.

The soul is nothing without God, for it cannot even reflect upon itself
without this world, which is a creation of God.