வியாழன், 10 செப்டம்பர், 2015

EARLY ETHICS AND THE THIRUKKURAL - Dr. Xavier THANINAYAGAM



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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