EARLY ETHICS AND THE THIRUKKURAL
Dr. Xavier THANINAYAGAM
It is to Egypt that we have to go
for the first pages of recorded ethics, and this takes us back from the second
to the fourth millennia before Christ. The Kingdom of the Pharoahs, which arose
on the banks of the Nile, was based on agriculture and commerce. Society was
divided into classes at the head of which was the Pharaoh, followed by a
powerful priesthood, a landed gentry, and slaves. There was a system of
tenant-cultivation, and produce as taxes. Happiness in after-life was dependant
on life on earth. In this environment, elementary notions of Justice, honesty,
truthfulness, Loyalty grew. Most Egyptologists are, however, agreed that the
Egyptians were not very highly developed in their ethical sense.
The ethical literature which
developed among the Egyptians includes books of maxims and proverbs giving
practical norms as how to conduct the business of life. These books which are
probably the first known books of the world, were meant by men of affairs to
instruct their sons or wards, and were subsequently used as textbooks for the
education of the young. Students had to copy these textbooks, and hence several
of these copy-books, papyri have been preserved. One of these is the Instruction
of Ptahhotep, a great Vizier, (fl. 2675 or 2870 B.C.), who wrote down, in
his old age, instructions for his son so that he might be trained as his
assistant, and in course of time, his successor. Among the many aphorisms and
maxims he says:-
It
is a craftsman who speaks in council, and speech is more difficult than any craft.
Make
righteousness flourish, and thy children shall live.
Established
is the man whose standard is righteousness, who walketh according to his way.
In
another book Instruction for King Merikere (2300 B.C.) it is said:
Truth
comes to him well-brewed, after the manner of the ancestors. Imitate thy
fathers, thy ancestors……….for lo! Their words abide in writing.
The
Proverbs of Amenemope, written about 1000 B.C, are the first collection
of proverbs in the world. Among those are found:
Better
are loves when the heart is joyous than riches in unhappiness.
Take
not gifts from the strong; neither shall thou oppress the weak.
A
number of the maxims in the Thirukkural are similar, but the Thirukkural shows
a great advance on Egyptian ethics. The Egyptians did not have abstract ethical
terms like Justice, generosity, loyalty, for they thought in terms of the
individual and the concrete. They did not say
“ I walk” , but “my legs walk”. Their word for Right is Right
direction. Instead of the word “ikai” (ஈகை-generosity) they would express “to
give bread to the hungry, water to the thirsty, clothes to those who have no
clothes”-very much like the Hebrew writers.
Among the Greeks, ethical
consciousness grew gradually. In the early stages of Greek culture, as represented
in the epics, it is through notions of customary morality that notions
of honour, fidelity and service are portrayed. The development is not unlike
the development in the Sangam poems, where notions like honour (puhal),
self-respect (manam), right and justice (aram), prevalent among a warrior
society lead to even more abstract considerations. But from customary morality,
Greek ethics develops into conscious and rational morality with Socrates, Plato
and Aristotle. This rational morality is the stage at which w are able to
compare the Thirukkural with Greek ethics, as represented in their
philosophers and their gnomic poets.
In comparing the Thirukkural with
the thought of the Greek philosophers, it should be noted that we are comparing
condensed book of maxims or sutrams with works whose style is diffuse. Leisurely,
and lengthy, works in which opinions are discussed elaborately and in detail
with illustrations from life and history. For instance, Plato deals with the
state in many of his dialogues, but especially in his Republic and in
his Laws. But the Thirukkural deals with the State in about 600
couplets or 1200 lines. What is remarkable is that the Thirukkural contains the
quintessence of that level of thought and supposes an ethical temper and age,
in no way inferior to those represented by the Greek philosophers. Tamil
society at the Thirukkural period was as ethically conscious and cultivated as
Greek society in the fourth century B. C. Similarly, the Roman Stoics are
conscious, to an exaggerated degree, about loss and wastage of time, for death
comes, after which no man can work. In a book of maxims, such leisurely and
dithyrambic disquisitions on the fleeting nature of existence and the wastage
of time are not possible. Valluvar can afford to clinch the same argument in
one phrase-
வீழ்நாட்படா அமை நன்றாற்றின்
or
அன்றறிவாம் என்னுது அறஞ்செய்க.
Ethics which had been earlier treated
as a part of politics was given a separate place by Aristotle in his book on Ethics
called Nicomachean Ethics, from his son Nicomachus. For whom it was
written. The theme of Aristotle’s Ethics is happiness defined as the active
exercise of the mind in perfect conformity with goodness or virtue. The
sophists held that morality was merely for the convenience of society and that
a thinking man could have his own standards and follow his own pleasure and
interests. The rational pleasure derived from one’s activity is great
happiness, second only to contemplation in Aristotle. This emphasis on contemplation
is absent in Thirukkural. Being a
book of practical ethics and proceeding from a rational plane, except for the
introductory verses, and the chapters on asceticism, the rest of the book seems
to be humanistic. But the rational happiness is expressed in the Thirukkural by
the words இனிது, உவப்பு, இன்னுது, இன்பம், which occur so often. The rational
pleasure is different from the sentient pleasure in other verses, as when one
hears one’s children’s speech, or feels their physical touch. Aristotle defines
pleasure and pain to consist in the “consciousness, by means of the
discriminating faculty of the senses, of coming in contact with good or evil”.
He conceived the moral sense as analogous to the faculty for appreciating
music, which may be more in some persons and less in others and which is
capable of being developed. In using the terms இனிது, இன்னுது, இன்பம், how well has
Thirukkural shown the rational pleasure arising from virtue and learning! A
good man, says Aristotle, is pleased at good actions, as a musical man is
pleased at good musical tunes. Inbam is the result of Aram and Porul in
Thirukkural. All others, wealth etc., help the attainment of Inbam.
In the delineation of virtue,
Aristotle chooses the principle of the mean, probably influenced by the
“nothing in excess” ideal of the Greeks. What is the virtue of Liberality? It
is the mean between prodigality and avarice. What is the virtue of Courage? It
is neither rashness nor cowardice, but lies between the two. The moralist, in
drawing the beauty of virtue and the results of virtue, finds it easier to
define virtue as well as to exhort to virtuous action if he can also outline
the opposed vices and defects. The Thirukkural makes use of this method, as
does Aristotle. The Thirukkural reflects on Education as well as on Ignorance;
on Righteous Rule as well as on Unrighteous Rule; on Friendship, on Wealth as
well as Poverty, on Perfection as well as on Baseness. But there is a
difference between Aristotle and Valluvar. Aristotle has been criticized for
his concept of virtue, in that he seems to place it in the centre between two
extremes, whereas virtue should always be the highest perfection, and therefore
an extreme. Particularly strong was Kant in his criticism of Aristotle, saying
that he reduced of Aristotle, saying that he reduced the difference between
vice and virtue to a mere quantitative difference. But the Thirukkural does
not give room for any such observation, because it inculcates the highest
living ethics possible in every aspect of life, without the imposition of any
moderating or limiting notion in the concept of virtue.
- KURALNERI 01.06.1966
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