Kabir and Kural

                             

Who in this world does not want to feel good? In every interaction, every conversation, every relationship, every experience that we encounter, we search for goodness and happiness. It is a normal human trait; without exception. I have been a recipient of this munificence of goodness from many people in life.

                                       

Technology can be extolled or criticized, as one may perceive it; but this technology has become my platform for sharing goodness with a diverse set of people over the last 3 months and more. I started out writing on Kabir’s Dohas late in May, and shared that on Whatsapp with a few contacts. Within a few days I added Thirukkural by Thirvalluvar. Alternating between the two, I have been posting a daily thought through Whatsapp, Facebook and Emails, to many known and some unknown people.  I have borrowed the original thought from these Saints’ writings, and made a short interpretation in my own words, to suit present context or match with present times. It has been a fulfilling and enjoyable journey

                         

                        

Both these saints wrote masterpieces on ethics of living, how to be happy, what is good, etc. In short, their works are more a guide to good living than anything else. They lived in different time eras and were geographically apart, but there is great synergy in their teachings. It only goes to prove that values of life haven’t changed with development of society. In fact, as development happened, the need for storing and living those values are far more relevant and necessary.

Thirvalluvar (also called Valluvar) was born in Nagercoil (Tamil Nadu) somewhere between 2^nd century BC and 8^th century AD. Even if we assume 8^th century AD, that is about 1300 years ago. Kabir was born in Varanasi (Uttar Pradesh) in 15^th century AD, i.e. about 600 years ago. Two spiritually evolved literary stalwarts, set apart by 7 to 10 centuries, couldn’t be more nearer to teaching values of life, as they were.

Valluvar wrote a treatise called “Thirukkural” which contains 1330 stanzas of 7 words each, in short, “Kural”. Kural means voice. Literally this treatise was the voice of goodness and ethics. It was written in Tamil, which has a history of being probably the only non-sanskrit originating language in India. The Tamil he used is very difficult to decipher, but once understood, they are rich in suggestive meanings.

Kabir wrote poems, songs and couplets. His couplets, called Kabir Dohas, are the most popular of his writings. He used a mix of various local dialects of colloquial Hindi, therefore his language was very easy to understand, although in using Avadhi and Bhojpuri words, he preferred using satire. He believed in drawing the attention of his audience through a negative criticism of people with wrong tendencies; which enabled his audience to draw inference on the opposite positive side, as to how to live life.

As a closing tribute to this piece, I am sharing their sayings and my commentary on those, on one common point. I hope to do a compare on what these masters say on a few other topics, in the course of the next few months.

              Sant Kabir                                                                Thirvalluvar

                              

        Prem & OmSuresh