Chapter Two – Verse three

Vin’nindru paeipin virineer via’nulagath
thun’neen nudat’rum pasi


The first verse tells us about the presence of water everywhere, while the second verse tells us about the uses of water. This verse tells us about the importance of rain.


Vin’nindru
Note: there is a spelling mistake in most copy and past type of books, where the word "vinnindru" is written as “vinyindru” instead as in our ancient books where it is “vinnindru”. This word and the word in the first verse is not the same and does not carry the same meaning.


Here the meaning is “if the sky stops”


Paeipin
Meaning “raining”, thus the two words mean “if the sky stops raining”


virineer
The word viri means “surrounded” and neer means ‘water”; thus virineer means “surrounded by ocean:


via’nulagath
via means “wide” and ulagam once again refers to “life” on earth.


Thus the first sentence means, “if the sky stops raining, life on this earth which is surrounded by the wide ocean”


thun’neen
Here the word means “will stay permanently”


nudat’rum
This is a word to describe “distress”


Pasi
This is hunger.


Thus meaning “will stay permanently in hunger distress”.

Thus the whole sentence means “if the sky stops raining, life on this earth which is surrounded by the wide ocean will stay permanently in hunger distress”.

Here, Thirukkural uses the example of an earth surrounded by ocean, because even if the world is surrounded by vast amount of water, it is useless water, so without the rain (fresh water) evey life, be it plants, animals or humans, will be under the pain of hunger and starvation.