Thiruvalluvar

Thiruvalluvar (Tamil: திருவள்ளுவர்), commonly known as Valluvar, was a celebrated Tamil poet and philosopher. He is best known as the author of the ''Tirukkuṟaḷ'', a collection of couplets on ethics, political and economical matters, and love. The text is considered an exceptional and widely cherished work of Tamil literature.

Almost no authentic information is available about Valluvar, states Kamil Zvelebil – a scholar of Tamil literature. His life and likely background are variously inferred from his literary works by different biographers. There are unauthentic hagiographic and legendary accounts of Valluvar's life, and all major Indian religions, as well as Christian missionaries of the 19th century, have tried to claim him as secretly inspired (''crypto-'') or originally belonging to their tradition. Little is known with certainty about his family background, religious affiliation, or birthplace. He is believed to have lived at least in the town of Mylapore (a neighbourhood of the present-day Chennai), and his floruit is dated variously from fourth century BCE to early fifth century CE, based on the traditional accounts and the linguistic analyses of his writings. Maraimalai Adigal gives 31 BCE as the birth year of Valluvar, while Kamil Zvelebil infers the ' and Valluvar are best dated to around 500 CE.

Valluvar has influenced a wide range of scholars down the ages since his time across the ethical, social, political, economical, religious, philosophical, and spiritual spheres. He has long been venerated as a great sage, and his literary works a classic of Tamil culture.

Life

There is negligible authentic information available about Valluvar's life. In fact, neither his actual name nor the original title of his work can be determined with certainty. ' itself does not name its author. Monsieur Ariel, a French translator of his work in the 19th century, famously said it is "the book without a name by an author without a name". The name ''Thiruvalluvar'' (''lit.'' Saint Valluvar) was first mentioned in the later text '' Tiruvalluva Maalai''.

The speculations about Valluvar's life are largely inferred from his work ' and other Tamil literature that quote him. According to Zvelebil, Valluvar was "probably a learned Jain with eclectic leanings and intimate acquaintance with the early works of Tamil classical period and some knowledge of the Sanskrit legal and didactic texts ('' subhashita'')".

Traditional biographies

The Shaivite Tamil text '' Tiruvalluva Maalai'' contains the earliest known textual reference to the legend of Valluvar, but it remains undated. This text attracted attention in the colonial era because an early 19th-century commentary referred to him as "Valluvan" (Valluvar) whose text presented the "esoteric wisdom of the Vedas to the world". The original text relates the Kural in the context of Sanskrit literature. The commentary includes the gloss that Valluvan was "born in a low caste", but the original text does not. According to Stuart Blackburn, this comment appears to be extra-textual and possibly based on the oral tradition. No other pre-colonial textual sources have been found to support any legends about the life of Valluvar. Starting around the early 19th century, numerous legends on Valluvar in Indian languages and English were published.

Various claims have been made regarding Valluvar's family background and occupation in the colonial era literature, all inferred from selective sections of his text or hagiographies published since the colonial era started in Tamil Nadu. One traditional version claims that he was a Paraiyar weaver. Another theory is that he must have been from the agricultural caste of Vellalars because he extols agriculture in his work. Another states he was an outcast, born to a Pariah woman and Brahmin father. Mu Raghava Iyengar speculated that "valluva" in his name is a variation of "vallabha", the designation of a royal officer. S. Vaiyapuri Pillai suggested Valluvar derived his name from "valluvan" (a Paraiyar caste of royal drummers) and theorized that he was "the chief of the proclaiming boys analogous to a trumpet-major of an army". H. A. Stuart, in his ''Census Report of 1891'', claimed that Valluvans were a priestly class among the Paraiyars and served as priests during Pallava reign, and similarly Robert Caldwell, J. H. A. Tremenheere and Edward Jewitt Robinson, too, claimed that Valluvar was a Paraiyar. Valluvar was likely married to a woman named Vasuki and lived in Mylapore. According to traditional accounts, Valluvar died on the day of Anusham in the Tamil month of Vaikasi.

The poem ''Kapilar Agaval'', purportedly written by Kapilar, describes its author as a brother of Valluvar. It states that they were children of a Pulaya mother named Adi and a Brahmin father named Bhagwan. The poem claims that the couple had seven children, including three sons (Valluvar, Kapilar, and Atikaman) and four sisters (Avvai, Uppai, Uruvai, and Velli). However, this legendary account is spurious. Kamil Zvelebil dates ''Kapilar Agaval'' to 15th century CE, based on its language. Various biographies mention the name of Valluvar's wife as Vasuki, but such details are of doubtful historicity.

The traditional biographies are not only inconsistent, they contain claims about Valluvar that are not credible. Along with various versions of his birth circumstances, many state he went to a mountain and met the legendary Agastya and other sages. During his return journey, he sits under a tree whose shadow sits still over Valluvar and does not move the entire day, he kills a demon, performs miracles such as causing floods and making them retreat, he touches a grounded ship which miraculously then floats and sails off, his bride Vasuki cooks sand which comes out as boiled rice, and many more. Scholars consider these and all associated aspects of these hagiographic stories to be fiction and ahistorical, a feature common to "international and Indian folklore". The alleged low birth, high birth, and being a pariah in the traditional accounts are also doubtful.

By 1904, Purnalingam Pillai – an ardent Dravidianist, had analyzed and called these traditional accounts and stories as myths. Pillai's analysis and arguments are robust, according to Blackburn. These fictional accounts of Valluvar's life have become popular because aspects of the traditional accounts were selectively accepted by Christian missionaries such as George Pope and other European writers, were widely published and then became a required reading about Tamil history.

Date

The exact date of Valluvar is unclear. His work ' has been dated variously from 300 BCE to about the sixth century CE. According to traditional accounts, it was the last work of the third Sangam and was subjected to a divine test (which it passed). The scholars who believe this tradition, such as Somasundara Bharathiar and M. Rajamanickam, date the text to as early as 300 BCE. Historian K. K. Pillay assigned it to the early first-century CE. These early dates such as 300 BCE to 1 BCE are unacceptable and not supported by evidence within the text, states Zvelebil. The diction and grammar of the ', his indebtedness to some earlier Sanskrit sources, suggest that he lived after the "early Tamil bardic poets", but before Tamil bhakti poets era.

In 1959, S. Vaiyapuri Pillai assigned the work to around or after the sixth-century CE. His proposal is based on the evidence that the ' contains a large proportion of Sanskrit loan words, shows awareness and indebtedness to some Sanskrit texts best dated to the first half of the first-millennium CE, and the grammatical innovations in the language of '. Pillai published a list of 137 Sanskrit loan words in '. Later scholars Thomas Burrow and Murray Barnson Emeneau show that 35 of these are of Dravidian origin, and not Sanskrit loan words. Zvelebil states that an additional few have uncertain etymology and future studies may prove those to be Dravidian. The 102 remaining loan words from Sanskrit are "not negligible", and some of the teachings in the ' states Zvelebil are "undoubtedly" based on the then extant Sanskrit works such as the ''Arthashastra'' and ''Manusmriti'' (also called the ''Manavadharmasastra'').

According to Kamil Zvelebil, the ' does not belong to the ( Sangam) period. In the 1970s, Zvelebil dated the text to somewhere between 450 and 500 CE. His estimate is based on the dates of Tamil texts with similar Tamil language features, and by placing it after some of the Tamil and Sanskrit treatises that are evidenced in the '. Zvelebil notes that the text features several grammatical innovations, that are absent in the older Sangam literature. The text also features a higher number of Sanskrit loan words compared with these older texts. According to Zvelebil, besides being part of the ancient Tamil literary tradition, the author was also a part of the "one great Indian ethical, didactic tradition", as a few of his verses are "undoubtedly" translations of the verses in Sanskrit classics.

In the 19th century and early 20th century, European writers and missionaries variously dated the text and Valluvar to between 400 and 1000 CE. According to Blackburn, the "current scholarly consensus" dates the text and the author to approximately 500 CE.

In January 1935, the Tamil Nadu government officially recognized 31 BCE as the year of Valluvar. As suggested by Maraimalai Adigal, the Valluvar Year was added to the calendar. Thus, the Valluvar year is calculated by adding 31 to any year of the common era.

Birthplace

As with most other details about Valluvar, the exact place of his birth remains uncertain. Valluvar is believed to have lived in Madurai and later in the town of Mayilapuram or Thirumayilai (present-day Mylapore in Chennai). There are also accounts that say he was born in Mayilapuram and later moved to Madurai in order to publish his work at the royal court. The poem ''Kapilar Akaval'' states that Valluvar was born on the top of an oil-nut or ''iluppai'' tree (''Madhuca indica'') in Mayilapuram,
while verse 21 of the ''Tiruvalluva Maalai'' claims that he was born in Madurai.

In 2005, a three-member research team from the Kanyakumari Historical and Cultural Research Centre (KHCRC) claimed that Valluvar was born in Thirunayanarkurichi, a village in present-day Kanyakumari district. Their claim was based on an old Kani tribal leader who told them that Valluvar was a king who ruled the "Valluvanadu" territory in the hilly tracts of the Kanyakumari district.

Religion

Valluvar is generally thought to have belonged to either Jainism or Hinduism. Hinduism, Jainism, and Buddhism were the three religions that flourished in the Indian subcontinent during the time of Valluvar. Early 19th-century writers proposed that Valluvar may have been a Jain. The 1819 translation by Francis Whyte Ellis mentions that the Tamil community debates whether Valluvar was a Jain or Hindu. If Valluvar was indeed a Jain, it raises questions about the source of the traditional Valluvar legends and the mainstream colonial debate about his birth.

Kamil Zvelebil believes that the ethics of the ' reflects the Jain moral code, particularly moral vegetarianism (couplets 251–260), and ahimsa, that is, "abstention from killing" (couplets 321–333); scholars also note the articulation of Thiruvalluvar in one of the couplets of Tirukkuṟaḷ on the liberation (''Moksha'') from the cycle of rebirth (''Saṃsāra'') through living a life with a compassionate heart. Zvelebil states that the text contains epithets for God that reflect Jain ideology:
* ''Malarmicaiyekinan'' (Couplet 3), "he who walked upon the otusflower"
* ''Aravaliyantanan'' (Couplet 8), "the Brahmin ho hadthe wheel of dharma"
* ''Enkunattan'' (Couplet 9), "one of the eight-fold qualities"

These, according to Zvelebil, are "very much Jaina-like" because the arhat is seen as "standing on the lotus", or where the ''arhat'' in the Jain conception is the god with the lotus as his vehicle. There are exceptions, adds Zvelebil, when Valluvar treats this God with epithets found in the Hindu text ''Manusmriti'' (1.6), that is, "the Primeval Lord" and "the King, the Monarch". Zvelebil states that his proposal is supported by the 13th-century Hindu scholar Parimelalhagar, who wrote a commentary on the Kural text, who admitted that these epithets are "very well applicable" to a Jain Arhat. However, according to P. S. Sundaram – a scholar who has translated the text in the late 20th century, Parimelalhagar's commentary explicitly states that there are no ainaheretical beliefs in the texts either.

Some other epithets mentioned in the text also reflect a "strong ascetic flavour" of Jainism in Zvelebil's view:

* ''Ventutal ventamai ilan'' (Couplet 4), "he who has neither desire nor aversion"
* ''Porivayil aintavittan'' (Couplet 6), "he who has destroyed the gates of the five senses"

Zvelebil further states that Valluvar seems to have been "cognizant of the latest developments" in Jainism. Zvelebil theorizes that he was probably "a learned Jain with eclectic leanings", who was well-acquainted with the earlier Tamil literature and also had knowledge of the Sanskrit texts. Early Digambara or Svetambara Jaina texts do not mention Valluvar. The first claim of Valluvar as an authority appears in a 16th-century Jain text, about 1,100 years after his life.

According to other scholars, Valluvar's writings suggest that he belonged to Hinduism. Hindu teachers have mapped his teachings in ' to the teachings found in Hindu texts. Valluvar's treatment of the concept of ahimsa or non-violence, which is the principal concept in both Jainism and Hinduism, bolsters this argument. While the text extols the virtue of non-violence, it also dedicates many of 700 ''porul'' couplets to various aspects of statecraft and warfare in a manner similar to ''Arthasastra'': "An army has a duty to kill in battle, and a king must execute criminals for justice." This non-mystic realism and the readiness for just war teachings are similar to those found in Hinduism. According to M. S. Purnalingam Pillai, Valluvar has not condemned Saiva Siddhanta or its principles anywhere in the text, which he says is the crucial test to be applied in determining his religion. Matthieu Ricard believes Valluvar belonged to the Shaivite tradition of South India.

The three parts that the Kural literature is divided into, namely, ''aram'' (virtue), ''porul'' (wealth) and ''inbam'' (love), aiming at attaining ''vitu'' (ultimate salvation), follow, respectively, the four foundations of Hinduism, namely, dharma, artha, kama and moksha. According to Norman Cutler, the prodigious 13th-century Tamil scholar Parimelalakar – who wrote the most influential commentary on ' – interprets the layout and focus on the Valluvar to be synonymous with the Sanskritic concept of Puruṣārtha

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