Thomas Hitoshi Pruiksma - The Kural

My first and largest debt is to the late Dr. K. V. Ramakoti. Without his years of patient teaching and encouragement, I would never have dared to take on this project. I am also deeply indebted to his late wife, Mrs. K. R. Padmavathi, and to all of their family and extended family for their long hospitality and friendship.

Heartfelt and tender thanks go as well to twelve other late friends whose encouragement and example remain as alive as ever: Hayden Carruth, John Berger, Sam Hamill and Gray Foster, William and Paula Merwin, Kamala Surayya, Subba Raju, Paul L. Love, K. P. C. Pitchai, David Citino, and Norman Care.

Happily, Im still able to cherish the worldly presence of twelve other friends who have helped me in this effort more than I can say: C. F. John and Reena Kappen, Wendell and Tanya Berry, Gustavo Esteva and Nicole Blanco, Vidya Bhushan and Prabha Arora, Uma and Ashis Nandy, Joe-Anne McLaughlin-Carruth, and Robert Longsworth.

Scholarships and fellowships from Oberlin Shansi, the US Fulbright Program, Ohio State University, Oberlin College, and the National Endowment for the Arts have all aided this project enormously, and I am grateful for the time and support they offered.

I am also grateful for the unwavering support of my parents, sister, and brother-in-law, who have stood by me through many strange-seeming decisions and borne my many long absences from home.

If I were to try listing all the friends and well-wishers in Tamil Nadu and in India who have helped me learn Tamil over the past two decades, I would not only run out of space but also run the risk of inadvertently leaving someone out. I do, however, want to acknowledge the village of Valayappatti, whose people have shown me how the ideals of the Kural continue to be embodied in actual life. To all of my family and neighbors in that place, my deep and enduring thanks. And to all of my friends in Madurai, Tamil Nadu, and beyond, my unending gratitude and appreciation.

For their insights and assistance during the final revisions of the poems and preface, my appreciation to Martha Selby, David Shulman, and Paula Richman. For miraculously finding a home for this translation in the middle of a pandemic, a deep bow to my agent, Malaga Baldi. For seeing and supporting the possibilities of this project, joyful thanks to my editor, Amy Caldwell, and to all of her extraordinary colleagues at Beacon Press. For her illuminating introduction, my immense appreciation to fellow translator and scholar Archana Venkatesan. And for his insightful and timely foreword in a tumultuous time, my gratitude to Andrew Harvey.

Finally, without the love and support of my husband, David Mielke, I would never have found the energy to continue what has sometimes felt like a never-ending apprenticeship. If this translation can hope to touch peoples hearts and lives, it is because he has deeply touched mine.

All speech starts from ahas the world
Starts from God

Without touching the feet of one who is truth
What good is study

At the feet of a mind in flower a person
Lives long upon earth

At the feet of a mind beyond like and dislike a person
Knows no suffering

The two deeds that bring darkness bring nothing to those
Singing the true glory of God

A person lives long on the truthful path
Of those free of all five senses

Except at the feet of one without peerhard
To escape the hearts suffering

Except at the feet of an ocean of compassionhard
To cross the other two

Like senses without sensethe head that wont bow
To those embodying all virtue

A swimmer cannot swim the sea of birth
Without touching the feet of God

Because rain gives us the worldfitting to know it
As ambrosia

Making food fit for feeding and itself
Food that feedsrain

If skies fail to rain hunger racks the wide earth
Surrounded on all sides by seas

The plowmen wont plow if the wealth
Of storm clouds has withered

That which ruins and raises up
The ruinedrain

If clouds do not let their drops fallhard to see even
One tip of green grass

If clouds of lightning do not gather and give
Even the great seas will shrink

For beings in heaven no festivals no prayers
If the heavens dry up below

No generosity or austerity can grace this great world
If the skies grant nothing above

No being can be without waternothing can flow
For anyone without rain

Good books agreethe great let go in that way
Which is theirs

Letting go is how greatgreat as how many
Have died on earth

Knowing the two and choosing to let gono
Greater glory in this world

He who leads the five with the prod of solidity
A seed in the best of all lands

To the power that commands all five Indra himself
Lord of gods bears witness

The great do the impossiblethe small do
What everyone can

The world is theirs who fathom all five
Sight sound touch taste smell

The secret spoken by those of true words
Shows their greatness on earth

From those who have climbed characterhard to stand even
One moment of rage

Those who let go embody gracethey show
Compassion to all

It grants eternity and also grants wealthwhat gains
A life more than doing right

Nothing gains more than virtuenothing destroys more
Than forgetting it

As best as one can do right without ceasing
Everywhere that right can be done

Right action is purity of heart-and-mindall else
Nothing but noise

Envy desire anger bitter wordsright action
Is freedom from all four

Do right without waitingat death it remains
Beside one undying

No need to speak of virtuelook who is borne
And who bears the palanquin

It closes the way back like a weirenacting whats good
Without wasting one day

Right action brings happinessall else
Oblivion and pain

Action that fits is virtueaction
That doesnt is vice

One at home stands in goodnessfoundation
Of the three other stations

To the impoverished the forsaken and the dead
The one at home is friend

Nothing is higher than honoring the five realms
Spirits gods guests relations self

A life that shares food and fears wrongway
Without end in the world

If a life at home has love and virtuethat
Is its root and flower

If one does right living at homewhat good is
Doing anything elsewhere

One true to the life at home stands above
All others who strive

The home life that guides othersgreater
Than greatest austerity

The life at home is itself right actionand good
When free of all blame

Those on earth thriving in the life at homeheld
Among gods in heaven

She whose greatness suits home and her husbands
Abundance alikethat is a life companion

If a wife lacks a wifes glory even with all other glories
The home life has none

Whats lacking if a wife is greatwhats not
If a wife is not

What is greater than a wife if she bears
The great strength of fidelity

She who rises revering no god but her husband
Says rain and the rain pours down

A true wifeone without weakness who cares for herself
Her husband and the power of words

What safety is the safety of wallsthe safety within
Keeps her safe

If she gains him that gained her a wife gains