The Kural is considered a masterpiece and one of the most important texts of the Tamil Literature. Ever since it came to print for the first time in 1812, the Kural text has never been out of print. The text has been translated into at least 40 Indian and non-Indian languages, making it one of the most translated ancient works. The work remains the most translated, the most cited, and the most citable of Tamil literary works. These include Ilango Adigal, Kambar, Leo Tolstoy, Mahatma Gandhi, Albert Schweitzer, Ramalinga Swamigal, Karl Graul, George Uglow Pope, Alexander Piatigorsky, and Yu Hsi. The Kural has been widely admired by scholars and influential leaders across the ethical, social, political, economic, religious, philosophical, and spiritual spheres over its history. The text effectively denounced previously held misbeliefs that were common during the Sangam era and permanently redefined the cultural values of the Tamil land. It also includes chapters on friendship, love, sexual unions, and domestic life. In addition, it highlights truthfulness, self-restraint, gratitude, hospitality, kindness, goodness of wife, duty, giving, and so forth, besides covering a wide range of social and political topics such as king, ministers, taxes, justice, forts, war, greatness of army and soldier's honor, death sentence for the wicked, agriculture, education, abstinence from alcohol and intoxicants. The Kural is traditionally praised with epithets and alternative titles, including 'the Tamil Veda' and 'the Divine Book.' Written on the foundations of ahimsa, it emphasizes non-violence and moral vegetarianism as virtues for an individual. The Kural text is among the earliest systems of Indian epistemology and metaphysics. The traditional accounts describe it as the last work of the third Sangam, but linguistic analysis suggests a later date of 450 to 500 CE and that it was composed after the Sangam period. The text has been dated variously from 300 BCE to 5th century CE. Its authorship is traditionally attributed to Valluvar, also known in full as Thiruvalluvar. Considered one of the greatest works ever written on ethics and morality, it is known for its universality and secular nature. The text is divided into three books with aphoristic teachings on virtue ( aram), wealth ( porul) and love ( inbam), respectively. The Tirukkuṟaḷ ( Tamil: திருக்குறள், lit.'sacred verses'), or shortly the Kural ( Tamil: குறள்), is a classic Tamil language text consisting of 1,330 short couplets, or kurals, of seven words each.

Thirukkural stories pdf