Peace in Ancient Indian Literature – Thirukkural

1. Peace in Indian Context
Peace in Ancient Indian Literature –
Thirukkural
By
M.VIJAYALAKSHMI
Assistant Professor

2. Objectives
At the end of the course the student teacher will
1. Understand the concept of peace education.
2. Understand the dynamics of transformation of
violence into Peace.
3. Understand the nature of conflicts and their
resolution.
4. Imbibe the knowledge, attitudes and skills
needed to achieve and sustain a global culture
of peace.
5. Adopt peace education in the curriculum.

3. Unit – 5: Peace in Indian Context
5.1 Peace in Ancient Indian Literature –
Thirukkural
5.2 Emperor Asoka’s Kalinga War, Conversion
5.3 Propagation of Peace - Jainism and
Buddhism
5.4 Gandhian Philosophy of Peace and Non-
Violence - Techniques of Non-Violence
Resistance - India a Peace-Loving Country:
Policy of Panch Sheel and Non-Alignment

4. Unit – 5: Peace in Indian Context
5.1 Peace in Ancient Indian
Literature – Thirukkural

5. • There are three holy works by which the
Tamil language has been made universal and
immortal.
• These three are the Tirukkural, the
Tiruvasagam and the Tirumandiram.
• The Tirukkural is the life, the Tiruvasagam is
the heart, and the Tirumandiram is the soul
of Tamil culture.

7. • Tirukkural, means “Holy Kural”.
• It is the work of the great saint of South India,
named Tiruvalluvar.
• It is a book for all humanity and for all times.
• A world that lives by its teachings shall enjoy
eternal peace, harmony, health, wealth, power,
grace and bliss.

8. • The Tirukkural contains treasures that lead to
peace and harmony at home as well as the
country.
• The Tirukkural, the Gita and Kalidasa’s
Shakuntala have been regarded by wise men
all over the world as the cream of Indian
thought and culture.

9. • The Tirukkural is a book written in the Tamil
language more than two thousand years ago.
• The great saints of the time were very fond of
discussing ethical ideals.
• In the streets, in the taverns and public
places, men gathered to apply their
concentrated minds on the great question of
what ought to be considered as good and
right, and what as evil and wrong.

10. • Many religions flourished in South India during
this time.
• Hinduism, Jainism and Buddhism were the most
popular.
• The caste system had not yet taken root.
• There was freedom of thought, ideas were
readily and easily exchanged, and men were
willing to listen patiently to points of view that
differed from their own.

11. • It was in this flourishing
environment that Tiruvalluvar lived.
• The Tirukkural, or Kural as it is also
known, contains some of the
greatest truths known to man,
written in a style that has rarely
been surpassed.

12. • Tiruvalluvar, or Valluvar as he was
popularly known, was clearly familiar
with all the great religions of his time.
• He also had knowledge of the
philosophy of the Romans and the
Greeks.
• But his Kural was not a patchwork of
ideas borrowed from different sources.

13. • Valluvar took up the first three of the
Purusharthas or the fourfold objects of life,
namely Dharma, Artha, Kama and Moksha
(virtue, wealth, love and liberation), as given
by the Vedic Rishis.
• He presented them in the three sections of
the Tirukkural, known respectively as
Arathuppaal, Porutpaal and Kaamathuppaal.

14. • He left out Moksha or liberation, for the
simple reason that when the first three are
set in order, the final state of God-realisation
is attained naturally.
• He also recognised that Moksha or liberation
is to be realised, not just discussed.

15. Ahimsa
• “All virtue’s aim is not to kill,
For killing leads to every kind of ill”. (321)
• “You may lose your life but still,
Another being you should not kill”. (327)
• Ahimsa or non-injury of any form is the
highest virtue. Sri Swami Shivananda says:
“Do not injure any being or creature in
thought, word or deed”. Valluvar also exhorts
man to refrain from killing in any form.

16. Against Anger
• He truly is without anger who does not give
vent to anger when the wrongdoer is under
his power. Where his anger cannot hurt, that
is when he cannot effectively retaliate, what
matters is whether he guards against anger
or not.
• Everyone knows that it is bad for oneself to
lose temper in dealing with superiors. But
where anger is directed against persons in
one’s power it is the worst of all offences.

17. • From anger is born all evil. Let us forget the
cause for provocation given by anyone.
• Can there be any greater enemy to mankind
than anger, which kills laughter and joy
(which indeed are the greatest of blessings
on earth)?
• Let him who would save himself guard
against anger. The anger that is not held back
is disastrous to oneself.

18. • He who thinks anger is a profitable or worthy
thing and yields to it is bound to suffer the evil
thereof, even like the fool that hits the ground
with his hand.
• Great may the wrong done to you; like many
tongued fire it may burn, but it is worthwhile
yet to struggle and rein back one’s anger, if at all
possible.
• There is nothing lost by not entertaining anger.
On the contrary it will be seen that what is
sought to be attained comes quicker if the mind
is kept free from it.

19. Do Not Cause Harm
• The best punishment for those who do evil to
you is to shame them by returning good for evil.
• Is there anything in much learning if it does not
make a man feel the pain of others as keenly as
the pain in his own body and avoid causing it?
• When a man has experienced pain and knows
what it is, how can he bring himself wantonly to
cause pain to others?
• The pain that a man causes to another in the
forenoon returns to him that very afternoon.

20. • The Thirukural, one of the great books of the
world, one of those singular emanations of
the human heart and spirit which preach
positive love and forgiveness and peace.
• Thirukkural, a pioneering Indian contribution
to Economic Science more than 2000 years
ago, and enlightens the mankind in a
scientific way to resolve this conflict for
world peace besides highlighting a few
interesting implications.

21. • Capitalism, Socialism and World Peace:
• Thirukkural, where Thiru means ‘success’ and
‘wealth’ and Kural means ‘in brief’, states
that "the harm caused to one's own self by
the self for lack of wisdom is so great that
even one's own warring enemy cannot do it“
(kural-843).

22. • This statement aptly describes the long-
fought wars of the mankind, armed or
economic whether overt or covert, in the
19th and recent centuries, causing enormous
harm to themselves defending capitalism or
socialism or communism out of fear and
suspicion for want of clear, correct and full
wisdom on the 'factors of production’.

23. • For, the root cause of this conflict between
capitalism and socialism seems to lie on the
competing claim to a lion's share in the
output-effect of the conversion process by
two factors of production namely 'labor'
under socialism and 'capital' under
capitalism.

24. • The mankind continues to suffer
even today from this clashing man-
made 'isms' either being at the
extremes as socialism or capitalism,
or somewhere in between as mixed
economies.

25. • Conflicts: Peace means absence of conflicts.
• ‘Conflict is a disease to all beings caused by
the absence of the characteristic of sharing’
(kural- 851).
• ‘It is very important not to cause harm in
view of conflict even if one is miserly with
respect to sharing’ (kural-852).
• The removal of the distressing conflict-
disease will yield stable (i.e. never
decreasing) and non-destructive peace (kural-
853).

26. • If the pain-cycle-causing conflict is destroyed
then that will yield pleasure-cycle (kural-
854).
• Else, the life of those saying that ‘increasing
conflicting is good’ will be of much instability
and destruction (kural-856).
• For, those who increase conflicts will not see
real wealth since taking to conflicts is of
harmful intelligence (kural-857).

27. • ‘It is productive (of wealth) to take to not-to-
conflict whereas encouraging increased
conflicts will only increase destruction (kural-
858).
• Because, one will not be able see conflicts
when wealth is coming in and will only
increase conflicts to cause destruction (kural-
859).
• Hence Thirukkural urges that all conflicts be
removed.

28. • World Peace:
• Thirukkural provides the solution also for world
peace by
• (i) identifying ‘the absence of the characteristic
of sharing in people’ as the cause of conflicts
(kural-851);
• (ii) identifying the very purpose of all
industrious labor in producing wealth is to help
the human beings by giving it (kural-212).

29. • They produce nothing really even if multiples
of billions are produced, who neither give to
others nor consumes (kural-1005).
• Also Thirukkural sternly warns that ‘huge
wealth is pain for those who neither
consume nor have the character of giving a
thing to people as help’ (kural-1006).

30. • ‘Those wealthy who do not help others by
giving a thing are like a tree bearing
poisonous fruits at the center of the place
(these inconsumable poisonous useless-trees
multiply through their seeds of their
unconsumed-wealth-fruits and infest the
area useful only for killing human beings and
other creatures, for poison only kills)’ (kural-
1008).

31. • One who has huge wealth but
does not consume it and will not
do anything with it is only a dead
body in fact (since a dead body
neither consumes nor does
anything) (kural-1001).

32. • Thirukkural chides that ‘the birth of those do
not like the fame from giving help to others,
due to miserliness, are merely dead-weight
to this Earth’ (kural-1003).
• ‘The wealth of those haves that do not give a
thing to the have-nots is as useless as a very
beautiful young girl attaining old age
unenjoyed (neither she enjoys mutually-
pleasing beauty herself nor lets others enjoy
it as in love-making) (kural-1007).

33. • Finally, ‘all the amassed wealth earned
by one by straining hard without the
objectives of sharing and helping others
will be taken away by others’ (kural-
1009).

34. CONCLUSION
• The teachings from the Thirukkural do not
conflict with Vedanta and are of no
difference to the teachings from the Bible,
the Koran, the philosophy of Buddha,
Confucius and other philosophical schools of
thought.

35. • The Thirukkural is a treatise on ethical
business leadership. Thirukkural advocates a
consciousness and a spirit-centered approach
to the subject of business ethics based on
eternal values and moral principles that
should govern the conduct of business
leaders.
• The 1,330 couplets (Kura!) of the Thirukkural
are rich with several lessons on business
ethics and leadership.

36. • It is hoped that this humble attempt will
reinforce Thirukkural ethics to Indian ,
including Tamil business leaders and make
them more aware of the code of conduct on
business, and Indian business leader will be
able to incorporate and apply the principles
of ethics taught by Thiruvalluvar in their daily
business practice.

37. Sources are taken from
•Slidesharenet.com
•Web sources