Talk:Tirukkural

Kamathupaal

kamathupal teaches divine love.

Excuse me, but kamam, derived from kama, is pleasure/lust. -- Arvindn 20:35, 2 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Whether the word kamam is really derived from kama is another argument. Anyway the classification of the last section as kamathuppal is bit old; the recent accepted version is இன்பத்துப்பால். You may look at other online versions especially the one by Karunanidhi and http://www.cs.utk.edu/~siddhart/thirukkural/ Also, Tirukural didn't exactly/explicitly teaches the sex or kamam as Kama Sutra. If you look at http://www.thedmk.org/thirukural/111.htm , you may understand that. So, IMHO, the word can be loosely translated as divine love (p.s. I'm not the author of the para). Anyway, this article needs more work. --Rrjanbiah 05:00, 3 Apr 2004 (UTC)

It would be a little strange for the to words to mean roughly the same thing but be etymologically unrelated.

You're right about inbathuppal, I think its better to change it to that.

Again, the Tirukkural is definitely not explicit about sex, as you say (I wasn't under the illusion; I did Tirukkural in school too.) Its kind of like some of the romantic works of Shakespeare.

On the other hand, the primary meaning of divine is relating to a deity, which the inbathuppal is clearly not. So I don't think divine love is appropriate.

Incidentally, why do you insist on spelling my username with an extra 'a'?

Arvindn 06:28, 3 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Sorry, I didn't notice your spelling. I just read it as Aravind (reflexive??). Just noticed that you didn't use the extra 'a'. Sorry. --Rrjanbiah 10:40, 3 Apr 2004 (UTC)

No prob :) Arvindn 11:41, 3 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Tiruvalluvar was not averse to referring to deities nor the personalized God, so i don't see how your argument stands. --LordSuryaofShropshire 08:13, Apr 4, 2004 (UTC)

Thiruvalluvar might not have been averse to referring to deities, but I don't see how that is relevant to referring to Inpathupal as divine love. I agree that Inpathupal is better (and free of Sanskrit loanwords) and also that divine love is not appropriate here.

Sundar 09:24, Apr 6, 2004 (UTC)

Hinduism?

Ambarish insists on having {{Hinduism}} in the article. I searched for the word "Hindu" in the article as suggested by him in his last edit summary and still find no reason to have {{Hinduism}} in the article. There was a mention of a speculation that Tiruvalluvar was a Hindu. Even if that was true, it doesn't matter Tirukkural as much as Tiruvalluvar as he never claimed his philosophy as Hindu. Even if matters there (Tiruvalluvar), {{Hinduism}} doesn't apply there. Ambarish, please help me understand your rationale. -- Sundar 05:07, Jan 24, 2005 (UTC)

I've gone ahead and removed {{Hinduism}}. Please reply here before reverting me. -- Sundar 10:35, Jan 24, 2005 (UTC)

My point is that {{Hinduism}} is as relevant in this article as a section titled "Tirukkural and Religion" that talks primarily about Valluvar's religious beliefs. So long as the article mentions a controversy about Valluvar's religion, the category is pertinent. It's a different argument that the text in the section should probably go into Tiruvalluvar instead. In that case, the category should go there too. BTW, re: "as there is no response yet from my question on Talk:Tirukkural#Hinduism" from your edit summary, I don't have a problem at all with your being bold and re-reverting my revert. I just thought I'd point out that you can't expect a response within 6 hours everytime. Ambarish 10:48, 25 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Well, if Tirukkural/Tiruvalluvar has to be categorized under Hinduism, there are few things to be clarified: 1. Which Hindu group, particularly orthodox brahmins accept Tirukkural as a Holy Hindu text? 2. Incase, if brahmins/aryans accept Dravidian Tiruvalluvar as Hindu saint, why don't they accept dravidian gods like Kali (not durga, but pathrakaali), Azhagar, etc as Hindu gods?

I presume, the problem is with the loose translation; often in Tiruvalluvar context, the Tamil words meaning "Philosopher" and "Scholar" are wrongly translated into "Saint" in English. IIRC, this even made Dr.Ambedkar to think, Tiruvalluvar as a Hindu/brahmin saint.

--Rrjanbiah 18:08, 27 Jan 2005 (UTC)