AN INTRODUCTION TO
THE STUDY OF TIRUVALLUVAR
———————————————-
A Lecture by Prof.Avvai Duraisami Pillai
————————————————————————————-
Part – 28
————————————————————————————-
சாதலின் இன்னாத்து இல்லை இனிது அதூஉம்
ஈதல் இயையாக் கடை (36)
The ultimate fruit of a life devoted to all kinds of household duties hitherto enunciated is earthly name and fame and nothing else. This renown is obtained by helping the poor and needy. After all man is mortal: neither the members of his family nor the society to which he has been attached accompany him, when he leaves once and for all the earth and its worldly life. The only thing that remains after him is his renown, Pugal (புகழ்). The best qualification for a living individual is to achieve fame; otherwise his life becomes worthless. According to Valluvan his dispisable existence will spoil the fertility of the land where he lives.
—————-40
வசையிலா வண்பயன் குன்றும் இசையிலா
யாக்கை பொறுத்த நிலம் (37)
The people without glory or fame will simply condemn themselves for this drawback and in the end they will ‘go down to the vile dust from whence they are sprung unwept, unhonoured and unsung’. The unblemished glorious man lives truly long after his death but the inglorious is dead even when he is alive.
வசையொழிய வாழ்வாரே வாழ்வார் இசையொழிய
வாழ்வாரே வாழா தவர். (38)
By the time a man attains glory and fame by proper conduct in family and society, he gets ripened in his worldly experience and entertains a kind of mental rejection of certain comforts he enjoyed in his youth. He feels that he has played his part in the drama of life, and that heshould retire soon. As this thought takes root deeper in him, his feelings which were hitherto tethered to the family get loosened and spread towards all living beings. He looks upon the pain and pleasure of all beings as if they are all his own, becomes an embodiment of sympathy and compassion and begins to abstain from eating flesh and doing any harm to others. He realis_es the meat as the flesh of another being and every time he takes it, an animal is killed and deprived of its life. He realises that he has no right to remove a life from its body which is not made by him; the flesh of an animal is as precious to it as his to him. Thus he enters into the path of penancs. Just as the craving for flesh-eating is controlled and irretrievably buried in the mind, so also he brooks all pains physical, mental or phenomenal and never does any harm to any being. The misfortunes that come to him successively are looked upon as fire that melts gold and makes it glitter brightly.
Add a Comment