1.5. Our life in 1330 couplets

We experience life by way of sensations that we receive through our sense organs. Any interaction with the world happens thorough our sense organs.

Living things can be classified based on the number of ways in which they can receive stimulus from the external world. Broadly, living things have a minimum of one way and a maximum of six ways to experience life.

Plants have only one way to experience the world. They have only a sense of touch. They use it to respond to light and find water. We can see that  plants will bend towards the sun and the roots will grow towards water. Worms have two senses (touch and taste), head lice has three senses (touch, taste and smell), snakes have four senses (touch, taste, smell, and sight) animals have five senses (touch, taste, smell, sight, and hearing).

          What about humans? We also experience the world through five sense organs. Then what is the difference between a human and a cow? The difference is we have a sixth sense called manam (in Tamil). Because of the presence of manam, we are able to think and analyze. However hard we may try,  we cannot make a cow to read Thirukkural and plan its life. Only humans can do that. Some researchers argue that manam is present in animals, but it is not fully developed. Just as how a blind person has eyes but cannot see, animals have a manam which is either non-functional or underdeveloped. Among animals, some have a developed sense of manam that comes a bit close to that of humans and those animals are most suited for domestication - cows and dogs are good examples.

          Manam cannot be seen or touched, but it is there, we see it working in our lives. Such things, whose presence cannot be touched or seen are called Sukuma things, and manam is a sukuma organ. The presence of manam is indicated by the ability to talk and smile. Animals cannot talk or smile. Their communication is limited and cannot be equaled to that of a human. Because of the presence of a well developed manam, humans are called as manithan in Tamil. Interestingly, human babies do not have a well developed manam either. Which is why, in Tamil we refer to babies with the pronoun “it” (it cries, it sleeps) and not “he or she”. He/she will be used when the baby has developed the maturity to talk and smile.

          Using the six senses, our ancestors, analyzed life, set goals and achieved them with a plan. They not only planned for the next five or ten years, but also discovered what happened after death, the places we go to in our after-life and planned their current life accordingly. They have left behind written documents of their findings which we have ignored. They have found that every planet in the Universe holds some form of life. That form may not be visible to our human eyes. If we keep searching for life in terms of our experiential knowledge, in a form that we can touch and feel,  we will not be able to find them. But, they have discovered that life exists in other forms (eg: Devas) and other planes (called Padams) some of them have a happier existence than ours. Our ancestors discovered how to live our current lives in order to get to those higher forms of existence. The goal of our life is to reach higher states of existence and finally reach a state of Permanent Happiness. There is a path that an ordinary person can take in order to  reach such a state.

That path is laid down in Thirukkural.

We can imagine how big, a book that gives instructions on life should be. But, Thirukkural’s instructions total 1330 couplets with seven words per couplet. How is it possible to condense our entire life in one book?

The contents of the book are organized in line with our daily activities. If we list down ALL the activities we perform in a single day of our life, they will fall into one of the following categories: 1) Aram/ Dharma activities (helping others, keeping ourselves clean etc), 2) Wealth seeking activities, 3) Pleasure seeking activities, 4) Activities towards Self actualization. There cannot be a fourth category. This classification is called Purudartham or Purushartham in Sanskrit.

Thirukkural has a set of instructions for the first three, in three broad sections called Paal-s that is, 1) A husband and wife live a life and perform good deeds. 2) They need money to do those good deeds and engage in wealth seeking activities. 3) To keep them motivated, they engage in pleasure activities. He does not have a section for the fourth activity because performing these three activities in the right way will automatically lead a person to self actualization (more on that later).

Aram has three components: a) Instructions for right path b) Dispute resolution that will be needed when people slip from the right path (vazhakku in Tamil) c) Remedial actions (punishments, or thandam in Tamil) to put people  back on track. Parts b and c do not instruct people about leading a good life, so Thiruvalluvar ignores them and focuses only on Aram.

All humans go through four personal stages (Learning age, Family Age, Retirement Age, and Age for Self Actualization) and take up one of the four social roles (producer, trader, protector, and educator) (Refer post on: Governance & SocialStructure in Tamil Society). Thirukkural talks about Aram that applies to all four social roles. As for the personal roles, he says that the Learning Age (Brahmacharyam) is a preparation for Family life (Grihastham). We all get an education to earn money to hopefully have a good family. Similarly, the Retirement age (Vanaprastham) is a preparation for Self Actualization (Sanyasam). When we retire, we learn to let go of things while we are still in a family life. This will prepare us to let go of other attachments to reach our final destination (Permanent Happiness).

So he combines the instructions for learning age and family age and under the tile Family Portion (Illarav-iyal), and combines instructions for Retirement age and Self Actualization age under a common heading Self Actualization Portion (Thuravarav-iyal).

With that the portion of Arathu-Paal comes to an end. It is followed by Porut-Paal and Inbathu paal.

It is not possible to eat an entire cake without cutting it into smaller pieces. Similarly, Thirukkural has been subdivided into smaller sections (called Paal, Iyal,  and Athigaram ) and organized in a manner that follows a human’s natural progression in life. The book has three major parts called Paal-s in accordance with Purudartham. Each Paal  is further divided into subsections called Iyal-s. Each Iyal is divided into smaller sections called Athigarams and each Athigaram has 10 couplets called Kurals. Each Kural has 7 words, 4 in the first line and 3 in the second line. Thus, we have a total of 1330 Kurals.

And that is how, Thiruvalluvar condenses the instructions for our entire life in one book, in 1330 couplets (Kurals).