03. Jaina ideas in Kural: II

(Continuation .....)

Similarities in chapter headings

Here I list down the topics that are identical to those found in the Kuŗal and two Buddhist works, namely Dhammapādā and "Tibetan Dhammapādā" (or Udānavarga). Tibetan Dhammapādā is a compilation of verses taken from the works attributed to Lord Buddha and later arranged into a string of 33 topics by Dharmatrata (Tibetan: Chos.skyob) who lived somewhere between 75 B.C. and 200 A.D. (Sparham, 1983). It resembles closely to Dhammapādā except that it has 33 chapters as opposed to the 26 chapters in the 'original' Dhammapādā (Table 8).

Table 8. Similarities in chapter headings between Tibetan Dhammapada and Thirukkuŗal

No	Chapter headings in Tibetan Dhammapāda	Chapt. in Tibetan Dhammapāda	Chapter headings in Kuŗal	Chapter Nos. in Kuŗal
1	Impermanence	1	Impermanence	34
2	Desire, Craving	2, 3	Eradicating desire	37
3	Ethics	6	Virtue	4
4	Fine conduct	7	Conduct	14
5	Words	8	Sweet speech & Useless talk	10 & 20
6	Honours	13	Honour	24
7	Wrath	20	Wrath	19
8	Thathagata	21	Greatness	99
9	Listening	23	Listening	42
10	Intimate friends	25	Old or intimate friends	81
11	Evil	28	Dread of evil deeds	21
12	The Monk	32	The greatness of ascetics	3
13	Animosity	52	Hostility	86

Though 40% of the chapters in Tibetan Dhammapādā are similar to those found in Tirukkuŗal, it contains only 16% of the 80 chapters short-listed for comparison. The percentage would have been higher had we chosen an anthology of Buddhist verses of a later date like Saman Suttam, especially if the topics in the anthology were based on the 10 moral percepts and 10 perfections (pāramis) in Buddhism. As we have seen in section 1.2, sixteen of these 20 percepts and perfections could be identified with different chapters in Thirukkuŗal. Now let us compare the Kuŗal with the chapter headings found in Dhammapādā (Table 9).

Table 9. Similarities in chapter headings between Dhammapada and Thirukkuŗal

No	Chapter headings in Dhammapāda	Chapt in Dhammapāda	Relevant chapters in Kuŗal	Chapter Nos. in Kuŗal
1	Vigilance	2	Possession of vigour	60
2	The Fool	4	Folly	84
3	The Sage	6	Company of the great	45
4	The Adept	7	Self control	13
5	Evil	9	Dread of evil deeds	21
6	Punishment	10	Pleasant speech & Not hurting	10, 32
7	Pleasure	16	Courage in Trouble	63
8	Anger	17	Avoiding wrath	31
9	Impurity	18	Faults	44
10	The Just Man	19	Goodness	98
11	Craving	24	Eradicating desire	37

Once again, a high percentage (42%) of the chapters in Dhammapādā have equivalents in Tirukkuŗal, though only 14% of the 80 chapters short-listed from Tirukkuŗal for the purpose of this comparative study appear in Dhammapādā. This is because Tirukkuŗal is much more comprehensive when it comes to dealing with the topics on the conduct of man in this world.

2.3. The Kuŗal and the Hindu classics

The sacred text that readily comes to our mind when we think of a religious classic in Hinduism is the Bhagavad Gītā. Sharma (1991) describes it as the quintessence of Hindu culture and the sum and substance of Indian philosophical theory and practice, metaphysics and ethics, mysticism and religion. In that sense, the Gītā is an ethico-philosophical work, unlike the Kuŗal which is primarily an ethical treatise. This could probably be the reason why Subramanian and Rajalakshmi (1984) maintained that the content of the two works clearly rule out even a comparison. However, there are many verses of similar import in both the Kuŗal and Gītā. The second work chosen here for a comparison is Manu Smiriti because it is easily the most popular of all Dharma sāstrās in Hinduism. Moreover scholars like Aiyangar (1923) and Sundaram (1990) are of the view that there are evidences in the Kuŗal of Valluvar's indebtedness to Manu's Dharmasāstra, besides Nitisāra, Arthasāstra and certain Ayurvedic treatises. Though the kind of Aŗam spoken in the Kuŗal has little relation to the Dharma of the śāstrās (Subramanian and Rajalakshmi, 1984), it is essential for the objective of this exercise that we decide on the Hindu classics to do a comparison with Tirukkuŗal. Manu Smriti also has some interesting parallels with the contents of the Kuŗal with respect to the second Divisions Artha or Wealth (பொருட்பால்) as it also talks about qualities of king, ministers, envoys, fort etc. These will not be taken into consideration here for this investigation as we have already set aside the chapters on polity and management. The third book to be take up here is Bhartrihari's Sātakas (Niti, Sringāāra and Vairāgya Sātakas), a work in many ways found to be comparable to the Kural. Nearly every third verse in Nitisātakam conveys the same message, often in matching terms.

Given below in table 10 are some of the parallels between Gītā and Kuŗal. 

Table 10. Select 10 verses of similar import in Bhagavad Gītā and Thirukkuŗal

No	Bhagavad Gītā	Kuŗal
1	I am the letter A among alphabet, the dual among compounds. (10:33)	With alpha begins all alphabets; And the world with the first Bagavan. KN, SI (1)
2	You are the greatest Guru, (for) there exists none who is equal to You. (11:43)	They alone escape from sorrows who take refuge In the feet of Him beyond compare. * VS (7)
3	One who draws away the senses from the objects of sense, as the tortoise draws his limbs into the shell, his intelligence is firm in its seat. (2:58)	Like a tortoise, withdraw your five senses in one birth, to protect you in the next seven. NV (126)
4	Those who are self-controlled, striving earnestly through the right means, will attain the goal. Those who lack it will find it difficult to progress. (6:36)	Self-control takes one to the gods. Want of it will push one into utter darkness. CR (121)
5	Triple is this gate of hell, destructive of the self: lust, anger and greed. (16:21)	Lust, wrath and delusion: Where these three are unknown, sorrows shall not be. * PS (360)
6	(One who is) ...... free from (the notion of) "I" and "my", .......... such a devotee is dear to Me. (12.13)	His is the world beyond heaven who is free of the delusion of "I" and "Mine". PS (346)
7	Your duty is to work, not to reap the fruits of work. (2:47)	Duty is not for reward. Does the world recompense the rain-cloud? PS (211)
8	That gift which is given, knowing it to be a duty, in a fit time and place, to a worthy person, from whom we expect nothing in return, is held to be sattwic. (17:20)	To give to the needy alone is charity. All the rest is investment for a return. SM (221)
9	Tamas, the deluder of Jeeva, is born of inertia. It binds by ignorance, laziness, and sleep. (14.08)	The pleasure-junks of destruction are four: Procrastination, forgetfulness, sloth and sleep.  PS  (605)
10	Men will recount thy perpetual dishonour, and to one in noble station, dishonour is worse than death. (2:34)	The world will admire and worship the glory of men who prefer death to dishonour. * CR (970)

There are some exciting similarities between Kuŗal and Manu Smriti and between Bhartrihari and Valluvar as well (Tables11 and 12).

Table 11. Ten select verses of similar import in Manu Smriti and Thirukkuŗal

No	Manu Smriti	Kuŗal
General ethics
1	There is no greater sinner than that one who seeks to increase his own flesh by the flesh of other beings. (V:52)	How can one command grace who eats the flesh of others to swell his own flesh? NV (251)
2	The killing of living beings is not conducive to heaven; hence eating of meat should be avoided. (IV:48)	What is the perfect path? It is the path of avoiding killing anything. NV (324)
3	An offering, consisting of muttered prayers, is ten times more efficacious than a sacrifice performed according to the rules (of the Veda). (II:85)	Better than a thousand burnt offerings is one life unkilled and uneaten. PS (259)
4	In (some) cases a man who, though knowing (the facts to be) different, gives such (false evidence) from a pious motive, does not lose heaven. (VII:103)	Even a lie would take the place of truth, if it brings blameless benefit. NV, VR  (292)
5	The body is cleansed by water, the internal organ purified by truthfulness. (V:109)	Water ensures external purity and truthfulness shows the internal. PS (298)
6	If a wife obeys her husband, she will for that (reason alone) be exalted in heaven.(V:155)	The woman who gains her husband’s love gains great glory in the heaven. * PS, SM (58)
7	Excessive eating is prejudicial to health, to fame, and to (bliss in) heaven. (II:57)	Once digested, eat with moderation. That prolongs the life of one embodied. * DL (943)
8	Drinking, dice, women, and hunting, these four (which have been enumerated) in succession, He must know to be the most pernicious in the set that springs from love of pleasure. (VII:50)	Fortune leaves those whose friends are wantons, wine and dice. PS (920)
9	After the Brahmanas, the kinsmen, and the servants have dined, the householder and his wife may afterwards eat what remains. (III:116)	Should his field be sown, who first feeds the guests and eats the rest? SB (85)
10	As the man who digs with a spade (into the ground) obtains water, even so an obedient (pupil) obtains the knowledge which lies (hidden) in his teacher. (2:218)	The more you dig a sand-spring, more the flow. The more you learn more the wisdom.  NV (396)

Table 12. Ten verses of similar nature between Bhartrihari's Sātakas & Thirukkural

No	Bhartrihari's Sātakas	Kuŗal
1	Conquering the heights of desire and avarice, a human being can experience. That unique contentment that even Lord Indra has ever been seeking. (Vairagyasātakam, 17)	Even the celestial king Indra will vouch the strength of one who rules his senses five. KK, PS (Kural 25)
2	Those men are evil who desire the wife of a neighbor or a friend. (Nitisātakam, 52)	No different from the dead are those who wickedly desire the wife of a friend. SS (Kural 143)
3	Forbearance in times of adversity, humility and forgiveness in times of prosperity, these are the innate qualities of great souls. (Nitisātakam, 63)	Adversity and prosperity come and go, but an unbiased heart adorns the noble. NV  (Kural 115)
4	Those men are evil who envy the prosperity and progress of their relatives and friends. (Nitisātakam, 52)	One who eyes the growth of others with envy forfeits the wealth of virtue. JN (Kural 163)
5	Beware! Some evil persons would be ever inimical. Like the hunter who kills a deer subsisting on grass of the forest. (Nitisātakam, 61)	A posing ascetic who sins secretly is like a fowler hiding in bush to trap birds. * KV (Kural 274)
6	It’s a gift divine for fools to hide their ignorance sublime! Keep shut your mouth in the assembly of wise. (Nitisātakam, 7)	Even a fool is fine if he can hold his tongue before the wise! PS (Kural 403)
7	Forever you keep good company. That alone illuminates your mind. (Nitisātakam, 23)	Even though the wise have a good mind, they strengthen it by good company. * NV, PS (Kural 458)
8	The sages have described the qualities of a sincere friend as thus: He keeps his friend away from misdeeds and propels him to good deeds; He covers his friend’s weakness and highlights his positive attributes; In times of distress, he helps his friend and does not desert him when his chips are down. (Nitisātakam, 73)	Friendship saves from ruin, guides towards right, and shares the pain of distress. * PS, GU (Kural 787)
9	The good, the saintly are ever ready to benefit others. They are like the cloud that showers rain upon the earth without prayer. (Nitisātakam, 74)	The brief want of the benign rich is like the monsoon clouds just shed its moisture. SB, NV (Kural 1010)
10	Modesty adorns you more than jewels. (Nitisātakam, 21)	Is not modesty the jewel of the great, and without it a curse for their pride and demeanor? * SS, NV (Kural 1014)

Such parallels, some of which though strikingly similar in content and style, is not uncommon between ethical literatures of the world. As we see in many places of this article, Baghavad Gītā and Manu Smriti differ a great deal from the Kuŗal in other aspects. Kural being an ethical treatise like Bhartrihar's three Sātakas, (of Virtue, Renunciation and Love), there is a great deal of similarity between these two works than to the Gita and Manu Smriti. We will come back to this point under "Discussions and Conclusions" of this section. 

Similarities and chapter headings

The chapter headings in Manu Smriti and Bhagavad Gītā are in no way comparable to those found in Thirukkuŗal. While Manu contains 12 untitled chapters, the Gītā has 18 chapters that do not in anyway match with the ones in Tirukkuŗal. Even Bhartrihari's Sātakas, containing a total number of 326 verses, is not organized under thematic chapters. Unless we come across an anthology like Saman Suttam or Pearls of Wisdom of Jainas, it would be impossible to make a meaningful chapter-wise comparison of three works with the Kuŗal. 

2.4 Discussion and conclusions

What has been shown in tables 4,7,10 and 11 are only 10 select verses of similar import between Tirukkral and sacred texts like Saman Suttam, Dhammapādā, Gītā and Manu Smriti in that order. Overall I could identify with couplets from the 80 chapters we short-listed in the beginning of this section, 21 verses of similar nature from Gītā, 23 verses from Manu Smriti, a high number of 44 from Dhammapādā, 35 verses from the three Sātakas and a meager 16 verses from Saman Suttam  In terms of percentage, there is no appreciable difference between these figures as it ranges from 2-5.5% of the 800 Tirukkural verses. It would be futile to derive any conclusion on Tirukkural's affiliation to a particular philosophical system from these figures of narrow variance. Moreover similar figures of comparable weightage could be seen even from works of non-Indian origin. For instance, the percentage from the 800 Thirukkural couplets for the Persian Gulistān is 6% and Biblical Proverbs 5.4%. With a higher percentage unearthed from such works, we cannot be carried away by the figure of 5.5% from Buddhist Dhammapādā. 

The variance, however, widens considerably when we look at the prevalence the other way. i.e. the number of Kural-like verses from the respective texts. Bhagavad Gītā has 700 verses (of which 574 are those of Lord Krishna), Manu Smriti has 2,725, Saman Suttam 756, the Sātakas 326 and Dhammapādā 423 verses. Almost 13% of the verses in the three Sātakas of Bhartrihari and about 10% of the verses from Dhammapādā resemble those of Kural, while it ranges from about 1% to 3.6% from the rest (Manu Smriti, Saman Suttam and Gītā). Since it is with Brahminical Bhartrihar's Sātakas and Buddhist Dhammapādā the Kural has the greatest similarity, can we now conclude that Valluvar was influenced by Hindu and Buddhist moral values? Is there a Jaina work that comes close to this percentage in similarity to the Kural? When we take the Tamil Jaina classic Nāladiyār - widely regarded as an amplified version of the Kural (Pillai, 2000) - into consideration for a comparison, more 10% of the couplets in Nāladiyār are of similar nature and content to those found in Kural. This has been graphically represented along with the corresponding figures for Proverbs (915 verses) and Analects (366 of 499 are attributed to Confucius) and Gulistān (about 774 maxims & sayings roughly counted) (see Fig. on the left).

With respect to chapter headings, Nāladiyār surpasses Buddhist works Udānavarga and Dhammapādā which so far has the leading figures (42 and 40% respectively) . Redactor Padumanar, who arranged Nāladiyār under forty chapters, would have looked at Tirukkural as paradigm while organizing his anthology (Pillai, 2000). Only eight of 40 chapters found in Nāladiyār does not find a place in Tirukkural. This means a whopping 80% within Nāladiyār and  high 47.5% of the chapters in Nāladiyār being similar to the 80 chapters in Kural we identified at the beginning of this section.

With such a fluctuation in similarities being evident between one sacred text and the another, it is impossible for us to come to a conclusion on the religious affinity of Thirukkural based on the data of percentage similarities in verses and chapter headings we have seen so far.

S(42 and 40%) Dhammapādā and Tibetan Dhammapada being identical to those in Tirukkuŗal. A comparatively lower percentage of 37 & 34% for "Peals of Jaina Wisdom" and "Saman Suttam" respectively could be attributed to the presence of other chapters that are largely metaphysical or philosophical in nature. Chapters on Religious order, Wrong faith, Soul, Path of liberation, Three jewels, Right faith, Vows, Mediation, Non-absolutism etc. are no doubt metaphysical in nature and have therefore found no place in the Kuŗal.

Buddhism Two points emerge when we closely analyze the similarities listed in Table 4 with the Jain classic Saman Suttam and in Table 7 with Buddhist Classic Dhammapādā. The first obvious point is that the authors of both Tirukkuŗal and Dhammapādā had employed some strikingly similar ideas for conveying the same message. The second observation is that most of the similarities with Dhammapādā are on moral percepts as opposed to percepts of dhārmic nature with Saman Suttam.

Valluvar has devoted two chapters for this, dealing with the great qualities of an ideal ascetic in the very third chapter and on deceitful ascetics who lead a double life in chapter 28. Apart from these, Valluvar has also referred to the ascetic practices outside these two (Chapters 5, 16, 31 etc.). 

Couplet 261:
The characteristic of penance lies in
Enduring hardships and harming no life. NV
267:
As the intense fire makes gold shine,
So does the burning austerities relieve pain. SS, NV

Saman Suttam and Pearls of Jaina Wisdom contains chapters on Penance (तपः सूत्र) and Austerity, whereas we do not see any chapter or verse on penance.

Neither nakedness nor matted hair nor mud nor the refusal of food nor sleeping on the bare ground nor dust & dirt nor squatting austerities cleanses the mortal who’s not gone beyond doubt" (ā 141).

Those ostentatious penances and austerities which are performed
In order to gain respect, honor and reverence are said to be in the mode of passion.
They are neither stable nor permanent.

And those penances and austerities which are performed foolishly
By means of obstinate self-torture, or to destroy or injure others,
Are said to be in the mode of ignorance.

By recognizing penance as a method of self-realization, one may be tempted to conclude that the Kuŗal has shown its religious inclination to Jaina philosophical tradition than to Buddhism. However, with respect to the ethical principles delineated in Tirukkuŗal, we have seen that there are more parallels with Buddhist ethical values than with the Jaina ones. 

Next Section: 3. Arguments against Hindu, Buddhist and Jaina influences