புதுக்குறள் Puthukural

Five hundred and fifty couplets, across three volumes, in the two-line form Valluvar left us two thousand years ago.

புதுக்குறள் தேடல் — தமிழில் Search the Puthukural in English

Why two lines

The kural is the shortest serious form in Tamil: seven words, two lines, and no room for throat-clearing. That is the whole appeal. An idea that cannot survive being said twice — briefly, with nothing to hide behind — was probably not an idea to begin with. Writing them is less like composing than like sanding something down until only the grain is left.

These are not translations of the Thirukkural and not commentary on it. They are new couplets in the old shape, about what is in front of me: work, food, the body, illness, parents, the particular foolishnesses of my own generation.

A few of them

The three volumes

Where they turn up again

Thirty of these couplets are quoted inside Nila Nalam — twenty I arrived at by reading and testing, and ten that came from my parents, who never studied medicine and were right anyway. Chapter 9 of that book sets them out one by one, each with a short gloss and a pointer to the part of the method it belongs to.

On Amazon

All three volumes are out in Tamil, and the English editions are following. Click a store, or scan its code with your phone.

New kurals and corrections come out in a monthly newsletter. How to subscribe.