Thiruvalluvar
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Biography
Thiruvalluvar was an eminent poet and philosopher of Tamil literature, during 3rd century BC to 1st century BC. His work Tirukkural is a prominent treatise on ethics, which consists of 1330 couplets or Kurals. It is also known as the "Bible of the Tamil land" or the fifth Veda.
Details
April 15, 2024: The Indian Express
The saint-poet to whom the collection of verses Thirukkural is attributed, is a revered icon for Tamils cutting across castes and religions. Political attempts to appropriate Thiruvalluvar have been ongoing for several years.
The historicity of Thiruvalluvar is uncertain. The period during which he lived is debated, as is his religious affiliation. Some accounts place him in the 3rd or 4th century CE; others date him to around 500 years later, in the 8th or 9th century.
He has been identified as both a Hindu and a Jain sage, while Dravidian groups consider him as a saint with no religious identifiers except his Dravidian roots. The ‘Thirukkural’ or ‘Sacred Couplets’, a collection of moral aphorisms in verse that is attributed to Thiruvalluvar, does not name him as its author; he is named first in a later collection of verses known as ‘Thiruvalluva Malai’.
In the book Tamil Wisdom: Traditions Concerning Hindu Sages and Selections from their Writings (1873), the Protestant missionary Edward Jewitt Robinson, who did one of the earliest translations of the ‘Thirukkural’, described Thiruvalluvar as a “Pariah”, with his mother belonging to “the low class”, while his father may have been a Brahmin.
He is said to have been found “in a grove…at Mayilapur near Madras”, next to a temple to Lord Shiva, by the “wife of a Velalan of high rank” who “carried the babe home”, but who ultimately gave him to the care of a “Pariah family”.
Why does Thiruvalluvar matter?
Thiruvalluvar, fondly referred to as Valluvar by Tamils, has long been regarded as a Tamil cultural and moral icon, who is revered by Tamils cutting across lines of caste and religion as an ancient saint, poet, and a philosopher.
The ‘Thirukkural’, a collection of 1,330 couplets (‘kurals’ in Tamil), are an essential part of every Tamil household — in the same way as, say, the Bhagavad Gita or the Ramayana/ Ramcharitmanas are in traditional North Indian Hindu households.
He is an essential anchor for Tamils in tracing their cultural roots; Tamils are taught to learn his couplets word-for-word, and to follow his teachings in their day-to-day living.
Even beyond Tamil Nadu, Thiruvalluvar is frequently invoked in the context of the rich philosophical traditions of ancient India, with an accent on morality and ethics. Successive Indian finance ministers have mentioned Thiruvalluvar in their annual Budget speeches.
How have competing claims to the legacy of Thiruvalluvar played out in the recent politics of TN?
In October-November 2019, there was controversy after the BJP’s Tamil Nadu unit tweeted a visual representation of Thiruvalluvar, in which the white robes traditionally seen on him were replaced by saffron ones. Subsequently, a leader of a radical Hindu fringe group was arrested after he tried to drape a saffron shawl around a statue of the saint.
The DMK and Left parties alleged that the BJP had betrayed the saint, whose values and teachings went beyond caste and religion. However, H Raja, who was then a national secretary of the BJP, had argued that Thiruvalluvar was in fact, a Hindu saint, and that Dravidian parties, who did not believe in God, had erased Hindu symbols around his personality over the years.
“The original Thiruvalluvar had vibhuti and all Hindu symbols. It was Dravida Kazhagam and DMK who changed his appearance to suit their political gains,” Raja had told The Indian Express at the time, and argued that the saint’s verses and life were similar to Sanatan Dharma.
Beyond the political claims on both sides, how should this tussle be understood?
S Swaminathan, a retired professor from IIT-Madras who specialised in ancient Tamil history, had told The Indian Express at the time: “From whatever little evidence is left on Thiruvalluvar’s life, several scholars have concluded that most likely he was a Jain, neither a Hindu nor a Dravidian. All that we can ascertain is Thirukkural, his extraordinary piece of literature, has no comparison in Indian history or ancient literature.”
Swaminathan said that political attempts to appropriate Thiruvalluvar have been ongoing for several years — by the Dravidian groups five decades ago, and by the Hindutva groups now. “The so-called picture of Thiruvalluvar in white robes itself was a recent imagination. No figure or picture of Thiruvalluvar existed [earlier]. We do not even know whether the Thirukkural was composed by one person or was an amalgamation of the work of many scholars over the years. Like Jesus, we created the figure of Thiruvalluvar several hundred years after his death,” Swaminathan said.
In the years after the R S S held its national council in March 2017 near Coimbatore, the Sangh Parivar has sought to use Tamil saints and icons in its political literature. Their comparatively thin presence at the grassroots has been a handicap for the R S S and BJP in Tamil Nadu, and attempts to appropriate or co-opt Tamil saints and icons have been part of the Parivar’s efforts to make up.
Cited by politicians
R Rangaraj, July 9, 2020: The Times of India
From: R Rangaraj, July 9, 2020: The Times of India
From: R Rangaraj, July 9, 2020: The Times of India
From: R Rangaraj, July 9, 2020: The Times of India
Days after the stand-off with China, Prime Minister Narendra Modi while addressing Army troops in Ladakh on July 5 recited a couplet by the Tamil philosopher-poet Thiruvalluvar to talk about valour. For anyone following Modi’s speeches, the verses written more than 2,000 years ago are now oft quoted by him.
In February, when Nirmala Sitharaman presented the Union Budget, she referred to the words of Thiruvalluvar to say that a good country needs five ‘jewels’ — free from epidemic or illness, wealth, farm productivity or crop, happiness and good defence. The spotlight on the most celebrated Tamil literary figure is not new. Former Union finance minister and Congress leader P Chidambaram has quoted him in all the Union Budgets that he presented since 1996 to elucidate ethics of a good ruler or the duty of a citizen.
For Chidambaram, well-versed in Tamil literary text, it was both a natural reference point as well as a way to establish a connection with his home constituency in Tamil Nadu. In a similar vein, for the BJP leaders in the past two years, there seems to have been a conscious decision to quote Thiruvalluvar, probably to woo the Tamil diaspora and to get a political foothold in one of its weakest spots — Tamil Nadu.
‘Thirukkural’, a collection of 1,330 couplets by the Tamil sage has turned out to be the favourite Tamil text of politicians cutting across party lines. Here the political designs on Tamil Nadu are undeniable. But it also underscores the fact that the text divided into teachings on dharma (virtue), artha (wealth) and kama (love) encompasses everything from ethics to politics and economics and lends itself to every situation that a speaker would want to invoke, in the process creating a bond with Tamils.
Last November, Modi released a book on Thirukkural in Thai language at Bangkok and lavished praise on the Tamil sage for articulating in simple words the most complex philosophies. This was followed by a BJP blitzkrieg on Twitter handle, showing Thiruvalluvar in saffron robe, sporting ‘vibhuti’ (sacred ash) and ‘rudraksh’, contrary to the traditional photo of Valluvar in just a white robe. This led to a controversy over the BJP bid of saffronisation, with various opposition parties pointing out that Valluvar had never projected any religion in his work and had advocated universal love and brotherhood.
The universality of the ancient couplets being open to interpretation could be coloured by those reading it. So at the time, the BJP in-charge for Tamil Nadu, Muralidhar Rao said, “Thirukkural is Hindutva and Hindutva is Thirukkural”. While H Raja, a member of BJP’s national executive committee, said Thirukkural is based on Hindu ‘sanatana dharma’ principles. BJP leaders have made liberal use of the views of noted archaeologist R Nagaswamy, who recently released the book ‘Thirukkural – An Abridgement of Sastras’, which claimed that Sanskrit and Vedic influences dominated the kural. When DMK president M K Stalin criticised Dr Nagaswamy, accusing him of being anti-Tamil, Nagaswamy had hit back at him.
BJP spokesman professor R Srinivasan denies that the party has been taking up the Tamil cause just for vote bank politics. “R S S, the parent body of the BJP, has taught us love for Tamil. In the prayer song of R S S, we hail all important identities of Tamils -- King Rajendra Cholan, Kannagi, the legendary Tamil woman, Cauvery river and sage Thiruvalluvar. It is not a political motive but a sign of patriotism. Now that BJP’s every activity is being given importance, this too is being highlighted,” Srinivasan said. Though the BJP rejects charges of tokenism, the attempts by Nirmala Sitaraman to project her Tamil lineage by quoting the famous Tamil poet Pisiranthaiyar last year with an inaccurate pronunciation was telling.
The growing Tamil influence could also be seen as the handiwork of external affairs minister Subramanyam Jaishankar, who hails from Tamil Nadu. The selection of Mamallapuram for talks with Chinese President Xi Jinping can also be attributed to Jaishankar, who wanted to revive the Tamil connection not just between the two countries, but also between the BJP and Tamil Nadu.
In the coming months in the run-up to the Tamil Nadu assembly polls scheduled in March-April 2021, there will be more attempts to tweak the Tamil card. If the BJP decides to make a pitch, and heads an alliance of parties under its belt, Modi has the option of fielding two of his Union ministers from the state — Nirmala Sitharaman and Jaishankar, if he so chooses. And at that time Thiruvalluvar could come in handy.
Who was Thiruvalluvar?
Thiruvalluvar is regarded as a cultural and moral icon for Tamils across caste and religious lines. The period when he lived is debated. Dravidian groups consider him as a saint with no religious identifiers except his Dravidian roots.
In 1873, British scholar Edward Jewitt Robinson wrote about the saint in his book 'Tamil Wisdom; Traditions Concerning Hindu Sages and Selections from their Writings'. In the book there are suggestions that “Valluvan, or priest of the tribe found the deserted child (in Chennai), and reared him as his own.”
Statues
Haridwar
The Times of India, Jun 29, 2016
Sheo S Jaiswal
A statue of renowned Tamil poet and philosopher Thiruvalluvar has been installed in Mela Bhawan after protests against its establishment near Har ki Pauri on the banks of the Ganga in December 2016.
The idea of having the renowned poet's statue installed on the banks of the Ganga near Har Ki Pauri was mooted before the Ganga Sabha by then BJP Rajya Sabha member Tarun Vijay, who offered to pay for the expenses from his MPLAD fund.
However, the project had been opposed by the Ganga Sabha and Akhil Bharatiya Teerth Purohit Mahasabha, another body of priests in Haridwar. "If one such statue is allowed to be installed, there will be a number of others queuing up for it, for so many other people and organisations will insist on having statues of their choice put on the Ganga banks," Ganga Sabha office bearers argued.
Following opposition from Ganga Sabha and Akhil Bharatiya Teerth Purohit Mahasabha, it was decided in consultation with the district administration to install the statue near Shankaracharya Chowk, which has a statue of Adi Shankaracharya. CM Harish Rawat and five state governors were invited for the unveiling.
His statues are also placed in Kanyakumari, Tamil Nadu and in London, UK.
See also
Thiruvalluvar
