[17][18][19][20][21][a] In addition, it highlights virtues such as truthfulness, self-restraint, gratitude, hospitality, kindness, goodness of spouse, duty, giving, and so forth,[22] besides covering a wide range of social and political topics such as king, ministers, taxes, justice, forts, war, greatness of army and soldier's honor, death sentence for the wicked, agriculture, education, and abstinence from alcohol and intoxicants.

[28] These include Ilango Adigal, Kambar, Leo Tolstoy, Mahatma Gandhi, Albert Schweitzer, Ramalinga Swamigal, V. O. Chidambaram Pillai, Karl Graul, George Uglow Pope, Alexander Piatigorsky, and Yu Hsi.

[42] In 1921, in the face of incessant debate on the precise date, the Tamil Nadu government officially declared 31 BCE as the year of Valluvar at a conference presided over by Maraimalai Adigal.

[79] According to Thomas Manninezhath – a theology scholar who grew up in South India, the Tirukkuṟaḷ is believed by the natives to reflect Advaita Vedanta philosophy and teaches an "Advaitic way of life".

[86][f] All the couplets are in kural venba metre, and all the 133 chapters have an ethical theme and are grouped into three parts, or "books":[86][87] Tirukkuṟaḷ "Virtue will confer heaven and wealth; what greater source of happiness can man possess?"

[129] This emphasis on substance rather than poetry, according to scholars, suggests that Valluvar's main aim was not to produce a work of art, but rather an instructive text focused on wisdom, justice, and ethics.

[147] While other Sangam texts approved of, and even glorified,[148] the four immoral deeds of meat-eating, alcohol consumption, polygamy, and prostitution, the Kural literature strongly condemns these as crimes,[149][150] reportedly for the first time in the history of the Tamil land.

[161] In the words of Gopalkrishna Gandhi, Valluvar maintains his views on personal morality even in the Book of Love, where one can normally expect greater poetic leniency, by describing the hero as "a one-woman man" without concubines.

[147] Valluvar presents his theory of state using six elements: army (patai), subjects (kuti), treasure (kul), ministers (amaiccu), allies (natpu), and forts (aran).

[170] The Kural cautions against tyranny, appeasement and oppression, with the suggestion that such royal behavior causes natural disasters, depletes the state's wealth and ultimately results in the loss of power and prosperity.

[85] Scholars claim that Valluvar seldom shows any concern as to what similes and superlatives he used earlier while writing later chapters, purposely allowing for some repetitions and apparent contradictions in ideas one can find in the Kural text.

The ten medieval commentators include Manakkudavar, Dharumar, Dhamatthar, Nacchar, Paridhiyar, Thirumalaiyar, Mallar, Pari Perumal, Kaalingar, and Parimelalhagar, all of whom lived between the 10th and the 13th centuries CE.

[3] Some of the commentaries of the 20th century include those by K. Vadivelu Chettiar,[200] Krishnampet K. Kuppusamy Mudaliar,[201] Iyothee Thass, V. O. Chidambaram Pillai, Thiru Vi Ka, Bharathidasan, M. Varadarajan, Namakkal Kavignar, Thirukkuralar V. Munusamy, Devaneya Pavanar, M. Karunanithi, and Solomon Pappaiah, besides several hundred others.

[206] By the end of the 20th century, there were about 24 translations of the Kural in English alone, by both native and non-native scholars, including those by V. V. S. Aiyar, K. M. Balasubramaniam, Shuddhananda Bharati, A. Chakravarti, M. S. Purnalingam Pillai, C. Rajagopalachari, P. S. Sundaram, V. R. Ramachandra Dikshitar, G. Vanmikanathan, Kasturi Srinivasan, S. N. Sriramadesikan, and K. R. Srinivasa Iyengar.

[219] This form, which Zvelebil calls "a marvel of brevity and condensation," is closely connected with the structural properties of the Tamil language and has historically presented extreme difficulties to its translators.

"[222] In August 2022, the governor of Tamil Nadu, R. N. Ravi, criticized Anglican Christian missionary G. U. Pope for "translating with the colonial objective to 'trivialise' the spiritual wisdom of India," resulting in a "de-spiritualised version" of the Kural text.

As was the practice across the ancient Indian subcontinent, in addition to palm-leaf manuscripts, the Kural literature had been passed on as word of mouth from parents to their children and from preceptors to their students for generations within the Tamil-speaking regions of South India.

[234] The first critical edition of the Tirukkaral based on manuscripts discovered in Hindu monasteries and private collections was published in 1861 by Arumuka Navalar – the Jaffna-born Tamil scholar and Shaivism activist.

[41] The themes and ideas in Tirukkuṟaḷ – sometimes with close similarities and sometimes with significant differences – are also found in Manu's Manusmriti (also called the Manavadharmasastra), Kautilya's Arthashastra, Kamandaka's Nitisara, and Vatsyayana's Kamasutra.

For example, the Prabandhas such as the Tiruvalluvamalai probably from the 10th century CE are anthologies on Tirukkuṟaḷ, and these extensively quote and embed it verses written in meters ascribed to gods, goddesses, and revered Tamil scholars.

Similar to Valluvar, Confucius advocated legal justice embracing human principles, courtesy, and filial piety, besides the virtues of benevolence, righteousness, loyalty and trustworthiness as foundations of life.

"[253] The Indian nationalist and Yoga guru Sri Aurobindo stated, "Thirukkural is gnomic poetry, the greatest in planned conception and force of execution ever written in this kind.

The 15th-century Jain inscriptions in the Ponsorimalai near Mallur in Salem district bear couplet 251 from the "Shunning meat" chapter of the Kural text, indicating that the people of the Kongu Nadu region practiced ahimsa and non-killing as chief virtues.

The portrait of Valluvar with matted hair and a flowing beard, as drawn by artist K. R. Venugopal Sharma in 1960, was accepted by the state and central governments as an official version.

[284] The couplets are frequently quoted by various political leaders even in pan-Indian contexts outside the Tamil diaspora, including Ram Nath Kovind,[285] P. Chidambaram,[286] and Nirmala Sitaraman.

[308] Authors influenced by the Kural include Ilango Adigal, Seethalai Satthanar, Sekkilar, Kambar, Leo Tolstoy, Mahatma Gandhi, Albert Schweitzer, Ramalinga Swamigal, E. S. Ariel, Constantius Joseph Beschi, Karl Graul, August Friedrich Caemmerer, Nathaniel Edward Kindersley, Francis Whyte Ellis, Charles E. Gover, George Uglow Pope, Vinoba Bhave, Alexander Piatigorsky, A. P. J. Abdul Kalam, and Yu Hsi.

[311][312] The work is commonly quoted in vegetarian conferences, both in India and abroad,[313][314] and is frequently cited on social media and online forums involving discussions on the topics of animal rights, non-killing, and shunning meat.

[318] On 26 April 2016, the Madras High Court directed the Tamil Nadu state government to include all the 108 chapters of the Books of Aram and Porul of the Kural text in school syllabus for classes VI through XII from the academic year 2017–2018 "to build a nation with moral values.

[47][329] d. ^ Nallaswamy Pillai declares Pope's claim as "an absurd literary anachronism" and says that the first two books of the Kural in particular are "a stumbling block which can browbeat the most sublime ideas of Christian morality.

In these cases, the violations of the aram [in the earlier section] are justified [by Thiruvalluvar] in virtue of the special duties cast on the king and the justification is that 'a few wicked must be weeded out to save the general public' (TK 550).