Thiruvalluvar

Who exactly is Thiruvalluvar ? Coming from Mumbai, my knowledge of Thiruvalluvar is just that he was a great saint, his teachings are seen on some of the buses in Chennai, there is a bus running by his name and he is seen at the start of every Balachander movie. I know, people are going to jump up and say what kind of tamil guy is he - but come on I have no other way of knowing until unless i start reasearching on my own. And that i did. The reason I started researching was, while talking to one of my friends about Thiruvalluvar, he said that the picture that u see of him is just somebody's imagination - nobody really knows how he looks, who he was, from what era he was, which religion he belonged. All they know is about his teachings.

These are many things that i read about him on the web. Some said that he was a weaver by profession, some said that he was a king - similar to Gautam Buddha, some said that he was from a Brahmin descent, some said he was a poet. But the best description was - The 'Tiru' part of his name is an honorific given to him as a mark of respect. 'Valluvar' is perhaps a respectful form of 'Valluvan', which indicates 'weaver' or 'town crier'.

Best description that i found was from this website - http://www.teosofia.com/Mumbai/7508tirukkural.html - Just some tidbits

Known as Thiruvalluva-nayanar (literally, "the sacred devotee"). It is said that he was a weaver by profession and that he belonged to the Valluva caste, whose profession it was in the ancient days to announce the commands of kings by beating of drums. He was born in Madura and lived in Mylapore, a suburb of what is known today as Chennai. The period in which this universal bard of Mylapore lived, is controversial. It is, however, generally accepted as between the first century B.C. and second century A.D., or roughly 2000 years ago. Some say that Valluvar was a Jain. It is true that he has used several of the Jain technical terms. However, we are quite warranted in imagining Valluvar as a true cosmopolitan and friend of all religions, the thoughtful poet, the eclectic, to whom the teachings of the Jains were as familiar as those of the Hindus. He seems to be one who was not hindered by any caste prejudices from familiar intercourse with foreigners and whose one thought was to gather knowledge from every source. There is, in fact, no trace in the Kural of many systems, doctrines, and practices, current in South India at different periods, because perhaps, they had been eliminated from the sage's own eclectic system of faith and practice, and also because his work is didactic and not controversial.

"The Tirukkural is the precious gem of universal Ethics. What the Bhagavad-Gita is to the Hindus and the Bible to the Christians, the Kural is to the lovers of Tamil."

"the masterpiece of Tamil literature—one of the highest and purest expressions of human thought. That which above all is wonderful in the Kural is the fact that its author addresses himself, without regard to castes, peoples or beliefs, to the whole community of mankind; the fact that he formulates sovereign morality and absolute reason; that he proclaims in their very essence, in their eternal abstractedness, virtue and truth; that he represents as it were, in one group the highest laws of domestic and social life; that he is equally perfect in thought, in language and in poetry, in the austere metaphysical contemplation of the great mysteries of the Divine Nature, as in the easy and graceful analysis of the tenderest emotions of the heart."


A Question to anyone who reads this blog - How is it that we have such great teachers - We quote these people - and still we don't follow them ? Recently I was listening to Annamacharya songs - wherein he tells that there is no higher caste or lower caste - all are one and the same in the eyes of god - All the brahmin teachers/so called higher caste people sing this song - praise the poet - but still once they come out of the house they differentiate people. Do they ever listen or ????