The Kural

One of the great works of classical Tamil literature, the Tirukkural gathers 1,330 rhymed couplets composed by the poet and moralist Thiruvalluvar. The couplets are grouped into three sections covering virtue, wealth and statecraft, and love, offering compact guidance on how a person should live, govern, and feel. Each verse is brief enough to memorize yet dense with meaning, and the work has been quoted and studied across South India for well over a millennium. This edition presents V. V. S. Aiyar’s English translation, which carries the aphorisms to readers beyond Tamil. Admired for its secular, humane outlook, the Kural remains a foundation of Tamil ethical thought. Free to download as a PDF and EPUB.