A. Chakravarti (17 May 1880 – 12 February 1960), who served the Indian Educational Service (IES), was a professor of

philosophy Philosophy ('love of wisdom' in Ancient Greek) is a systematic study of general and fundamental questions concerning topics like existence, reason, knowledge, Value (ethics and social sciences), value, mind, and language. It is a rational an ...

at the Presidency College in

Chennai Chennai, also known as Madras (List of renamed places in India#Tamil Nadu, its official name until 1996), is the capital city, capital and List of cities in Tamil Nadu by population, largest city of Tamil Nadu, the southernmost states and ...

India India, officially the Republic of India, is a country in South Asia. It is the List of countries and dependencies by area, seventh-largest country by area; the List of countries by population (United Nations), most populous country since ...

. He is known for translating the

Tirukkural The ''Tirukkuṟaḷ'' (), or shortly the ''Kural'' (), is a classic Tamil language text on commoner's morality consisting of 1,330 short couplets, or Kural (poetic form), kurals, of seven words each. The text is divided into three books wit ...

into English.

Biography

Chakravarti served the Indian Educational Services for several years. He was the chief professor of philosophy at the Presidency College in Chennai. He retired from IES as the principal of the Government College at

Kumbakonam Kumbakonam (formerly spelt as Coombaconum or Combaconum), or Kudanthai, is a city municipal corporation in the Thanjavur district in the States of India, Indian state of Tamil Nadu. It is located from Thanjavur and from Chennai and is the hea ...

. In appreciation of his services, the British government honoured him with the title "Rao Bhaghadur." Chakravarti translated the Tirukkural into English in prose and published it in 1953 under the title "Tirukkural" published by the Diocesan Press, Madras. His translation consists of four aspects: the original couplets of the Kural text in

Tamil Tamil may refer to: People, culture and language * Tamils, an ethno-linguistic group native to India, Sri Lanka, and some other parts of Asia **Sri Lankan Tamils, Tamil people native to Sri Lanka ** Myanmar or Burmese Tamils, Tamil people of Ind ...

script, transliteration in

Roman script The Latin script, also known as the Roman script, is a writing system based on the letters of the classical Latin alphabet, derived from a form of the Greek alphabet which was in use in the ancient Greek city of Cumae in Magna Graecia. The Gree ...

, translation of the literature in modern English prose, and his comments on the thematic aspects of the original literature. Scholars consider his translation faithful to the original.

Biography

See also

References

Further reading