Justifying jallikattu by citing Thirukkural is self-defeating: The Tamil text didn't condone animal cruelty

In all the sound and fury over jallikattu, many people from Tamil Nadu quoted the classic Tamil literature Thirukkural to justify their support to the sport, and for this horrendous cruelty towards helpless animals.

In fact, after it was forcibly restarted by a very strange notification by the state governor, who overrode two Supreme Court judgments, thereby weakening the very fabric of India's administration, hundreds of people have been wounded and some have died in these so called "peaceful" games that demonstrate the Tamil "love for the bull".

Subsequently, many of the maimed and injured bulls have been sent to Kerala for slaughter.

Thousands of people thronged Chennai's beaches in January to demand jallikattu. PTI

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In any case, quoting the poet Thiruvalluvar to support violence is literally twisting everything he stands for. While the book of verses is revered all over the world and translated into 82 languages (the treatise has earned the title 'Ulaga Podhu Marai', the universal scripture or Potumaṟai — 'The Universal Veda' or 'Book for All'), it is little known in India and it is time we learnt some of its wisdom.

The Thirukkural is the Bible of Tamil Nadu. It literally translates into "sacred/respected couplets", and was authored by the poet Thiruvalluvar (of whom nothing is known. The first instance of the author's name is found centuries later in a song of praise called the Garland of Thiruvalluvar in Thiruvalluva Malai) and has 1,330 couplets or kurals dealing with morality, ethics and virtue.

It is a truly sage and beautiful work, and is one of the finest non-religious works of philosophy. Written in old Tamil, it is a palm leaf manuscript of the 4th to 1st century BC. It was printed for the first time in 1812. The first complete English translation of Thirukkural was one by George Uglow Pope in 1886, which brought it to the western world.

It has 133 chapters of ten couplets each. Tirukkural was originally known as 'Muppaal', meaning three-sectioned book. There are three parts that it's is divided into: Aram/dharma (virtue), porul/artha (wealth), and inbam/kama (love). He has left out moksha, as he felt if a person followed the first three doctrines diligently in life, s/he would automatically attain moksha.

What is different about the treatise is that it expounds a moral and practical attitude towards life. It makes no promises of heaven beyond earth. It speaks of ways of behaving to achieve bliss in the present life itself. The ideas of the poet are luminous and humane: Humility, charity, nonviolence, forgiveness, asceticism, good administration. It is a perfect guide to live your life at the highest and purest level, so that you are happy and you make everyone around you happy.

Thirukkural deals with dilemmas that normal people face every day — over morals, politics, economics, love and domestic life, and provides practical solutions to these problems.

Albert Schweitzer had said "there hardly exists in the literature of the world a collection of maxims in which we find so much of lofty wisdom. Like the Buddha and the Bhagavad Gita, the Thirukkural desires inner freedom from the world and a mind free from hatred. Like them, it stands for the commandment not to kill and not to damage. There appears in Thirukkural the living ethic of love".

Leo Tolstoy was inspired by its concept of non-violence. "What are wanted for the Indian as for the Englishman, the Frenchman, the German, and the Russian, are not constitutions and revolutions; the knowledge of the simple and clear truth which finds place in every soul that is not stupefied by religious and scientific superstitions — the truth that for our life one law is valid — the law of love, which brings the highest happiness to every individual as well as to all mankind," he wrote.

Mahatma Gandhi studied Tirukkural in prison and called it "a textbook of indispensable authority on moral life" and went on to say, "The maxims of Valluvar have touched my soul. There is none who has given such a treasure of wisdom like him."

Here is the heart of the work: Verse 244 — "Mannuyir ompi arulaalvaarkku illenpa thannuyir anjum vinai" (For he who treats other living beings with kindness, in his own soul the dreaded guilt of sin shall never feel). Another translation of the same verse is "The compassionate, who care for all other lives, do not fear for their own lives."

This week, let me give you more verses from the Thirukkural on not eating the flesh of animals: How can someone possess kindness, if one eats meat from another body to grow one’s own body?

Verse 251:
One who doesn't value money can't be wealthy;
one who eats meat, can't be compassionate.

Verse 252:
The heart of one who has eaten and relished flesh, is like
the heart of one leading an army: it cannot be compassionate.

Verse 253:
The heart of one who has eaten and relished flesh, is like
the heart of one holding a deadly weapon: it cannot be compassionate.

Verse 253 V2:
What is compassion, and the lack of it: Not killing and killing;
it is not virtuous to eat meat got by killing.

Verse 254:
Compassion is exemplified by not killing; and the lack of it, by killing:
to eat meat so obtained, is not virtuous.

Verse 254 V2:
Kural 254 is structured very interestingly, allowing another interpretation: "Lack of compassion is exemplified by straying from the value of 'not killing'; to eat meat so obtained, is not virtuous.

Verse 254 V3:
Survival of species, depends on not being eaten;
those who eat them… hell will not split its mouth to spit them out.

Verse 255:
The rationalist in Kalaignar, finds another interpretation (literally more accurate, but contextually not quite convincing) for Kural 255: "Even a swamp will not swallow a life; survival of species is ensured by presence of vegetarians."

Verse 255 V2:
There won't be anyone selling meat for the sake of earning,
if the world stops killing for the sake of eating.

Verse 256:
Meat is the wound of some body;
if one gets this realisation, stop eating it.

Verse 257:
Those who have wisdom, free of flaws, would not
eat a body, freed of its life.

Verse 258:
To desist from killing a life and eating it, is better than
doing a thousand rituals, offering oblation.

Verse 259:
To one who doesn't kill and refuses meat, all lives will
fold their arms and pay obeisance.

To join the animal welfare movement, contact gandhim@nic.in, www.peopleforanimalsindia.org