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Thiruvalluvar
Thiruvalluvar (Tamil: திருவள்ளுவர்), commonly known as Valluvar, was a celebrated Tamil poet and philosopher. He is best known as the author of the ''Tirukkuṟaḷ'', a collection of couplets on ethics, political and economical matters, and love. The text is considered an exceptional and widely cherished work of Tamil literature. Almost no authentic information is available about Valluvar, states Kamil Zvelebil – a scholar of Tamil literature. His life and likely background are variously inferred from his literary works by different biographers. There are unauthentic hagiographic and legendary accounts of Valluvar's life, and all major Indian religions, as well as Christian missionaries of the 19th century, have tried to claim him as secretly inspired (''crypto-'') or originally belonging to their tradition. Little is known with certainty about his family background, religious affiliation, or birthplace. He is believed to have lived at least in the ...
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Kural
The ''Tirukkuṟaḷ'' ( ta, திருக்குறள், lit=sacred verses), or shortly the ''Kural'' ( ta, குறள்), is a classic Tamil language text consisting of 1,330 short couplets, or kurals, of seven words each. The text is divided into three books with aphoristic teachings on virtue (''aram''), wealth (''porul'') and love (''inbam''), respectively. Considered one of the greatest works ever written 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 text is among the earliest systems of Indian epistemology and metaphysics. The Kural is traditionally praised with epithets and alt ...
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Mylapore
Mylapore, also spelt Mayilapur, is a neighbourhood in the central part of the city of Chennai, India. It is one of the oldest residential parts of the city. It is also called Tirumayilai. The locality is claimed to be the birthplace of the celebrated Tamil philosopher Valluvar, and the Hindu saint and philosopher, Peyalvar. Mylapore is known for its tree-lined avenues, Kapaleeshwarar Temple, Katcheri seasons, and Ramakrishna Matha among many others. St. Thomas Cathedral Basilica, Chennai which is believed to house the tomb of Thomas the Apostle, is in Mylapore. Etymology The word ''Mylapore'' is the anglicized form of the Dravidian word ''Mayilāppūr''. It is derived from the Tamil phrase "மயில் ஆர்ப்பரிக்கும் ஊர்" (''Mayil ārparikkum oor''), which means "Land of the peacock scream".Saints, Goddesses and Kings By Susan Bayly Historically, peacocks have been known to thrive in the area, which is evident from the several statues ...
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Tamil Nadu
Tamil Nadu (; , TN) is a state in southern India. It is the tenth largest Indian state by area and the sixth largest by population. Its capital and largest city is Chennai. Tamil Nadu is the home of the Tamil people, whose Tamil language—one of the longest surviving classical languages in the world—is widely spoken in the state and serves as its official language. The state lies in the southernmost part of the Indian peninsula, and is bordered by the Indian union territory of Puducherry and the states of Kerala, Karnataka, and Andhra Pradesh, as well as an international maritime border with Sri Lanka. It is bounded by the Western Ghats in the west, the Eastern Ghats in the north, the Bay of Bengal in the east, the Gulf of Mannar and Palk Strait to the south-east, and the Indian Ocean in the south. The at-large Tamilakam region that has been inhabited by Tamils was under several regimes, such as the Sangam era rulers of the Chera, Chola, and Pandya ...
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Vasuki (wife Of Valluvar)
Vasuki ( ta, வாசுகி) was a Tamil woman who lived around the late or post Sangam era (between 1st century BCE and 5th century CE). She was the wife of the Tamil poet-philosopher Valluvar. She is traditionally considered a faithful wife and a model of Tamil womanhood. Biography Very little is known about the life of Vasuki other than her being the wife of Valluvar. According to Maraimalai Adigal, Vasuki was also known as Nagi. She was one of the daughters of Margaseyan (or Margasahayan), a farmer who lived near Kaviripakkam, and his wife Ambujam. It is said that when Margasahayan's crops contracted disease, Valluvar helped with curing them. As a token of gratitude, Margasahayan offered Valluvar his daughter in marriage. Legend has it that Valluvar asked Vasuki to cook a handful of sand in order to test her before taking her in marriage, and Vasuki miraculously turned it to boiled rice and served him a scrumptious meal. She is widely known as a chaste and pious woman a ...
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Secular Ethics
Secular ethics is a branch of moral philosophy in which ethics is based solely on human faculties such as logic, empathy, reason or moral intuition, and not derived from belief in supernatural revelation or guidance—the source of ethics in many religions. Secular ethics refers to any ethical system that does not draw on the supernatural, and includes humanism, secularism and freethinking. A classical example of literature on secular ethics is the Kural text, authored by the ancient Tamil Indian philosopher Valluvar. Secular ethical systems comprise a wide variety of ideas to include the normativity of social contracts, some form of attribution of intrinsic moral value, intuition-based deontology, cultural moral relativism, and the idea that scientific reasoning can reveal objective moral truth (known as science of morality). Secular ethics frameworks are not always mutually exclusive from theological values. For example, the Golden Rule or a commitment to non-violence, cou ...
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Indian Literature
Indian literature refers to the literature produced on the Indian subcontinent until 1947 and in the Republic of India thereafter. The Republic of India has 22 officially recognised languages. The earliest works of Indian literature were orally transmitted. Sanskrit literature begins with the oral literature of the Rig Veda, a collection of literature dating to the period 1500–1200 BCE. The Sanskrit epics ''Ramayana'' and ''Mahabharata'' were subsequently codified and appeared towards the end of the 2nd millennium BCE. Classical Sanskrit literature developed rapidly during the first few centuries of the first millennium BCE, as did the Pāli Canon and Tamil Sangam literature. In the medieval period, literature in Kannada and Telugu appeared in the 9th and 10th centuries respectively. Later, literature in Marathi, Gujarati, Bengali, Assamese, Odia, and Maithili appeared. Thereafter literature in various dialects of Hindi, Persian and Urdu began to appear as we ...
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Constantius Joseph Beschi
Constantine Joseph Beschi (8 November 1680 – 4 February 1747), also known under his Tamil name of ''Vīramāmunivar'', was an Italian Jesuit priest, missionary in South India, and Tamil language littérateur. Early years Born in Castiglione delle Stiviere, in the district of Mantua, in Italy, on 8 November 1680, Beschi got his secondary education in the Jesuits' High School at Mantua, which taught rhetoric, humanities and grammar. After becoming a Jesuit in 1698, he was trained in Ravenna and Bologna, studying philosophy for three years from 1701–1703 in Bologna, and theology for four years from 1706–1710. His studies also included Latin, French, Portuguese, Greek, and Hebrew. He was ordained as a priest in 1709. On hearing about the work done in India by the Jesuits returning to Italy from India, Beschi was eager to come to India. He requested and obtained permission from Superior General Michelangelo Tamburini to be sent to the Jesuit mission at Madurai in South India ...
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Kambar (poet)
Kambar or Kavichakravarthy Kamban (1180 CE–1250 CE) was an Indian Tamil poet and the author of the Ramavataram, popularly known as ''Kambaramayanam'', the Tamil version of the epic Ramayana.The Cyclopaedia of India and of Eastern and Southern Asia By Edward Balfour Kambar also authored other literary works in Tamil, such as Thirukkai Vazhakkam, ''Erezhupathu'', Silaiyezhupathu, ''Kangai Puranam'', ''Sadagopar Anthathi'' and ''Saraswati Anthathi''. Life Kambar was born in Therazhundur. His father was a wealthy farmer named Sadaiyepa Vallal. He grew up the Chola Empire under the reign of Kulothunga III. Having heard of this talented bard, Kulothunga summoned him to his court and honoured him with the title ''Kavi Chakravarty'' (''The Emperor of Poets''). Kambar flourished in Therazhundur, a village in the culturally rich Nagapattinam District in the modern state of Tamil Nadu in South India. Kambar is generally dated after the vaishnavite philosopher, Ramanuja, as the po ...
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Ilango Adigal
Ilango Adigal ()() was a Jain monk and a poet, sometimes identified as a Chera prince. He is traditionally credited as the author of '' Cilappatikaram'', one of the Five Great Epics of Ancient Tamil literature. He is one of the greatest poets from Cheranadu (now Kerala). In a ''patikam'' (prologue) to the epic poem, he identifies himself as the brother of a famous Chera king Ceṅkuṭṭuvan ( Senguttuvan). This Chera king, as stated by Elizabeth Rosen, ruled over his kingdom in late 2nd or early 3rd century CE. However, this is doubtful because a Sangam poem in '' Patiṟṟuppattu'' – the fifth ten – provides a biography of Ceṅkuṭṭuvan, his family and rule, but never mentions that he had a brother who became an ascetic or wrote one of the most cherished epics. This has led scholars to conclude that the legendary author Ilango Adikal myth was likely inserted later into the epic. In a 1968 note, Kamil Zvelebil suggested that, "this digal claimmay be a bit of poeti ...
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Sekkilar
Sēkkilān Mādēvadigal Rāmadēva (12th century CE), known popularly by his family name as Sekkizhar, was a saint and a contemporary of Kulottunga Chola II. He compiled and wrote the '' Periya Puranam'' (Great Story or Narrative) in 4253 verses, recounting the life stories of the sixty-three Shaiva Nayanars, the devotees of Shiva. Sekkizhar himself was later canonised and his work, the Periyapuranam became the twelfth and final book of the sacred Saiva canon. Life Sekkizhar was born as Arulmozhithevan, meaning ''the one of the divine language''. He was a native of Kundrathur village (a suburb of the present-day Chennai), a sub-division of Puliyur-kottam in Thondaimandalam. Sekkizhar was a child of precious genius and having noticed this, king Anapaya, that is Kulothunga Chola II appointed him as his Prime Minister on account of his talents. His life is celebrated by Umapati Sivacharya in his fourteenth century work (1313 CE) called Sekkizhar Nayanar Puranam. Sekkizhar had t ...
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Mahatma Gandhi
Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi (; ; 2 October 1869 – 30 January 1948), popularly known as Mahatma Gandhi, was an Indian lawyer, anti-colonial nationalist Quote: "... marks Gandhi as a hybrid cosmopolitan figure who transformed ... anti-colonial nationalist politics in the twentieth-century in ways that neither indigenous nor westernized Indian nationalists could." and political ethicist Quote: "Gandhi staked his reputation as an original political thinker on this specific issue. Hitherto, violence had been used in the name of political rights, such as in street riots, regicide, or armed revolutions. Gandhi believes there is a better way of securing political rights, that of nonviolence, and that this new way marks an advance in political ethics." who employed nonviolent resistance to lead the successful campaign for India's independence from British rule, and to later inspire movements for civil rights and freedom across the world. The honorific '' Mahātmā'' (Sanskr ...
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Leo Tolstoy
Count Lev Nikolayevich TolstoyTolstoy pronounced his first name as , which corresponds to the romanization ''Lyov''. () (; russian: link=no, Лев Николаевич Толстой,In Tolstoy's day, his name was written as in pre-reformed Russian. ; ), usually referred to in English as Leo Tolstoy, was a Russian writer who is regarded as one of the greatest authors of all time. He received nominations for the Nobel Prize in Literature every year from 1902 to 1906 and for the Nobel Peace Prize in 1901, 1902, and 1909; the fact that he never won is a major controversy. Born to an aristocratic Russian family in 1828, Tolstoy's notable works include the novels '' War and Peace'' (1869) and ''Anna Karenina'' (1878), often cited as pinnacles of realist fiction. He first achieved literary acclaim in his twenties with his semi-autobiographical trilogy, ''Childhood'', '' Boyhood'', and '' Youth'' (1852–1856), and '' Sevastopol Sketches'' (1855), based upon his experiences ...
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