In the vast expanse of the Tamil literary landscape, the Tirukkural – an ancient treatise that offers wise counsel on almost every matter pertaining to living – holds a singularly enviable place. The first-century BCE text remains arguably the most loved, commented on and translated volume in Tamil. The Tirukkural is universal. "It does not belong to one class, religion, race, language or country," says the renowned Tamil scholar Thiru Vi Kalyanasundaram. "It is the text that belongs to the world." The comment is as much about the secular nature of the Tirukkural as it is about its universality. Little is known about its author, Tiruvalluvar, who remains an enigmatic and widely honoured figure in Tamil culture. Every attempt to dissect his identity and every claim made to his overawing legacy has been overwhelmed by the magnificence of the text. That Tiruvalluvar could pack so much wisdom for humankind, transcending time and worlds, into two-line and seven-word verses, remains a feat nonpareil.
The Tirukkural holds formidable sway in everyday Tamil life – literary, cultural, social, political and otherwise. Not a day passes in Tamil Nadu without Tiruvalluvar being remembered by politicians, actors, writers or activists. From its incarnations in folk arts, like parai and theru koothu, to its various literary interpretations, the Tirukkural generates a world of endless possibilities. But it is perhaps the text's political appropriation that continues to influence Tamil life like no other literary work.
The Tirukkural is irrevocably intertwined with the ideals of the Dravidian movement, whose ideology has continued to govern Tamil Nadu for over fifty years now. The movement's relationship with the Tirukkural began by way of rejecting the commentary on it written by the 13th-century poet Parimelazhagar. Dravidian intellectuals, led by the stalwart Periyar, were rightly furious about Parimelazhagar's approach to the Tirukkural from the point of view of the Manusmriti, a legal text of Hinduism that codifies the caste system. Periyar claimed that Parimelazhagar, as a Brahmin scholar, had "imported into his commentary most of the Aryan tenets, and almost succeeded in hiding the genuine truths of Tiruvalluvar thoughts."
The scholar Devaneya Paavanar – a proponent of the Thanithamizh Iyakkam, a Tamil linguistic purity movement, who also interpreted the Tirukkural in the 20th century – called Parimelazhagar's commentary a "sword that struck at the root of the Valluvam," contending that his interpretation of the Tirukkural was irrational and subjective. The anger was not unfounded. Parimelazhagar's interpretation was largely based on a Brahminical and Sanskiritised understanding, including the laws of varna – the caste-based social hierarchy. A couplet from the Tirukkural, pirappokkum ellaa uyirkkum, says that everyone is equal by birth. The line that follows, sirappovvaa seithozhil vetrumai yaan, as interpreted by many scholars, says that difference comes in the demonstration of their talent in the work they do. Parimelazhagar interprets seithozhil, or "profession," as varna.