page_title: Tirukkuṛaḷ
section_title: Translations
hierarchical_section_title: Tirukkuṛaḷ / Commentaries and translations / Translations
caption_attribution_description: English: Karl Graul, also spelled Charles Graul, published a German translation of the Tamil classic Tirukkural in 1856 CE, reprinted in many editions (1865 shown above) as well as re-translated into other European languages such as English. It included Beschi's Latin translation (left above). Graul stated the Christian missionary Beschi gave a "Christian coloring" as he translated and interpreted this South Indian text. He himself speculated that this was probably a Buddhist or Jaina text, one that was "appropriated" by Shaiva Hindus sometime in distant history. He recommended that Christian missionaries seeking to influence and convert Tamil Hindu "heathendom" should study this text because they "breathe and live" this text. This Kraul translation was published in 1865, this is a photograph of the cover page (2D-Art), the author died before 1865 according to this publication. Thus Wikimedia's PD-Art guidelines apply. Any rights I have as a photographer, I herewith donate it to wikimedia foundation under creative commons 4.0 license.
context_page_description: The Tirukkural, or shortly the Kural, is a classic Tamil language text consisting of 1,330 short couplets of seven words each, or Kurals. The text is divided into three books, each with aphoristic teachings on virtue, wealth and love. Considered one of the greatest works on ethics and morality, it is known for its universality and secular nature. Its authorship is traditionally attributed to Valluvar, also known in full as Thiruvalluvar. The text has been dated variously from 300 BCE to 5th century CE. The traditional accounts describe it as the last work of the third Sangam, but linguistic analysis suggests a later date of 450 to 500 CE and that it was composed after the Sangam period.
  The Kural is traditionally praised with epithets and alternate titles such as "the Tamil Veda" and "the divine book." It emphasizes non-violence and moral vegetarianism as virtues for an individual.
context_section_description: The Kural has been the most frequently translated ancient Tamil text. By 1975, its translations in at least 20 major languages had been published:
  Indian languages: Sanskrit, Hindi, Telugu, Kannada, Malayalam, Bengali, Marathi, Gujarati, and Urdu
  Non-Indian languages: Burmese, Malay, Chinese, Fijian, Latin, French, German, Russian, Polish, Swedish, Thai, and English
  The text was likely translated into Indian languages by Indian scholars over the centuries, but the palm leaf manuscripts of such translations have been rare. For example, S. R. Ranganathan, a librarian of University of Madras during the British rule, discovered a Malayalam translation copied in year 777 of the Malayalam calendar, a manuscript that Zvelebil dates to late 16th century. The text was translated into several European languages during the colonial era, particularly by the Christian missionaries.
  The first European language translation (Latin) was published by Constantius Joseph Beschi in 1730. However, he translated only the first two books, viz., virtue and wealth, leaving out the book on love because its erotic and sexual nature was deemed by him to be inappropriate for a Christian missionary. The first French translation was brought about by an unknown author by about 1767 that went unnoticed. The first available French version was by E. S. Ariel in 1848. Again, he did not translate the whole work but only parts of it. The first German translation was made by Karl Graul, who published it in 1856 both at London and Leipzig.
  The first, and incomplete, English translations were made by N. E. Kindersley in 1794 and then by Francis Whyte Ellis in 1812. While Kindersley translated a selection of the Kural text, Ellis translated 120 couplets in all—69 of them in verse and 51 in prose. E. J. Robinson's translations of part of the Kural into English were the first to be published in 1873. W. H. Drew translated the first two parts in prose in 1840 and 1852, respectively. It contained the original Tamil text of the Kural, Parimelalhagar's commentary, Ramanuja Kavirayar's amplification of the commentary and Drew's English prose translation. However, Drew translated only 630 couplets, and the remaining were translated by John Lazarus, a native missionary. Like Beschi, Drew did not translate the third book on love. The first complete English translation of the Kural was the one by the Christian missionary George Uglow Pope in 1886, which introduced the complete Kural to the western world.
  The translations of the Kural in Southeast Asian and East Asian languages were published in the 20th century. A few of these relied on re-translating the earlier English translations of the work.
  By the end of the 20th century, there were about 24 translations of the Kural in English alone, by both native and non-native scholars, including those by V. V. S. Aiyar, K. M. Balasubramaniam, Shuddhananda Bharati, A. Chakravarti, M. S. Purnalingam Pillai, C. Rajagopalachari, P. S. Sundaram, V. R. Ramachandra Dikshitar, G. Vanmikanathan, Kasturi Srinivasan, S. N. Sriramadesikan, and K. R. Srinivasa Iyengar. The work has also been translated into Vaagri Booli, the language of the Narikuravas, a tribal community in Tamil Nadu, by Kittu Sironmani.
caption: 1856 CE Latin translation of Tirukkural by Karl Graul, with English notes by William Germann. Graul also published the first German translation.[112]
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