Thiruvalluvar
We know very little about the life of our poet. As in the case of so many of the world’s greatest men of the past, we have only to make our own conjectures even as to the time at which he flourished. Tradition says that he lived at Mylapore, Madras, where he had a friend in a rich merchant captain of the name of Elêla Shingan. This Shingan is described as the sixth descendant of a Chôla prince who, according to the Mahâvamsho of Ceylon, carried on a successful war against that island about 140 BC. This would give the 1st century AD as the probable date at which Thiruvalluvar flourished. Again, tradition declares that the Kural was published at the Madura College of poets in the reign of the Pânḍian Ugrapperuvajudi. Shrîmân M. Srînivâsa Aiyangâr in his scholarly book of Tamil Studies gives the date of accession of this king tentatively as 125 AD. Again, verse 55 of the Kural is quoted in Shilappadhikâram and Maṇimêkhalai, two great poems in the Tamil language, which have been determined on other evidence to have been written about the first or second century AD. We can therefore take it that our poet flourished between the 1st and 3rd centuries of the Christian era. Shrîmân M. Râghava Aiyangâr, writing in his able work on Chêran Chen-Kuṭṭuvan, has recently suggested the 5th century AD as the probable date of the two works above mentioned. But as it is admitted that the Kural is earlier in date than those two poems, this theory does not affect the limits above fixed for our Poet.
The very name of the poet is unknown to history, for the word Thiruvalluvar only means “the devotee of the valluva caste.” The valluvas are pariahs who proclaim the orders and commands promulgated by the king, by beat of drum from the back of elephants. From an encomiastic stanza on the author which tradition has preserved, it appears that he was born at Madura, the capital of the Pânḍias. Tradition declares that he was the child of a Brahman father named Bhagavan and a pariah mother Adi who had been brought up by another Brahman and given in marriage to Bhagavan. Six other children are named as the issue of this union, all of whom have dabbled in poetry.
Not much else is known about Thiruvalluvar besides the following bare facts. He was a weaver in Mylapore, having chosen weaving as the most innocent of all professions. He lived a happy family life until the death of his wife Vâsuki who was a model of every wifely virtue. Then he is said to have renounced the world and become an ascetic. A small book on the mysteries of wisdom, called Jnânaveṭṭi, is also attributed to him but the evidence of style seems to be against his authorship of it.
The Tamil people love to tell stories about his married life, which may be true or may be false, but which certainly serve to show not only what was their conception of the ideal home but also that Thiruvalluvar’s married life was in perfect agreement with the ideal as understood by them. Artless simplicity and unquestioning obedience to the husband are the first qualities that the East requires in the wife. Thiruvalluvar is said to have tested the faith of his prospective wife in him by asking her to boil and cook for him a handful of nailheads and other iron pieces. She took them in perfect faith and did as she was bid. The poet felt that she was the proper helpmate for him and married her. The fame of the happiness of their married life spread far and wide. A sage once visited him in order to ascertain for himself the truth of the report and to ask him whether he would recommend him to get married. Instead of answering the question directly, Thiruvalluvar wanted that the sage should draw his own conclusion after staying with him for some time. So he invited him to be his guest for a few days. One day as he and the guest were seated at their morning meal of cold rice and his wife was drawing water at the well in the yard, he called out to her saying that the rice was too hot for him to eat. Without questioning anything she left the water-pot even as she was drawing it up, and, hurrying to her husband’s side, fanned the rice that was served on the leaf. Wonder of wonders, steam rose from the cold rice as she fanned it and, what was still more miraculous, the pot that she had left to itself in order to obey her husband’s call remained hanging in mid air in the same position in which she had left it! Another day, in broad daylight, as he was working at his loom, Thiruvalluvar dropped the shuttle on the floor and called for a light to look for it. Vâsuki lit a light and brought it to him without even the slightest consciousness of the unreasonableness of the request. The sage had received the Poet’s answer: married life is the best even for scholars and searchers after truth if they can find a wife like Vâsuki; otherwise they had better continue single all their life.
The verse that is said to have escaped the lips of our Poet on the death of her who was the helpmate of his peaceful domestic life, is of a pathetic interest:
O loving one! O thou who usedst to cook delicious dishes for me and who hast never disobeyed me! who wouldst chafe my feet at night and sleep after I had slept and wake before I had waked! Art thou going away from me now, O artless one? When shall these eyes know sleep again?
These are about all the things that have come down to us regarding the life of one of the greatest geniuses of the world.