Page:A Bibliography on Thirukkural.pdf/16

Rh 'Behold how the waters lap on the lovely shores of à lake to the delight of villager: like unto it are the riches of the wise that love all mankind.' (215)

That Thirukkural ranks among the literary and poetical masterpieces of the world is distinctly evident from the following excerpts culled out from the reviews and commentaries of the luminaries of the literary and intellectual world.

"The Kural is the masterpiece of Tamil literaturc-one of the highest and purest expressions of human thought."

-M. Ariel (Journal Asiatique 1848).

“No translations can convey an idea of its charming effect. It is truly apple of gold in a net work of silver."

—Dr. Graul (1856).

The kural owes much of its popularity to its exquisite poetic form. The brevity rendered necessary by the form gives an oracular effect to the utterences of the great Tamil *Master of senteness'. They are the choicest of moral epigrams. Their resemblance to gnomic poctry of Greece is remarkable as to their subjects, their sentiments, and the state of society when they were uttered. Something of the same kind is found in Greek epigrams, in Martial and the Latin elegiac verse. There is a beauty in the periodic character of the Tamil construction in many of these verses that reminds the reader of the happiest efforts of Propertius."

—Rev. G. U. Pope (1886).

There is no doubt of the fact that the cural is as essentially the literary treasure, the poctic mouth-picce, the highest type of verbal and moral excellence among the Tamil people as ever Homer was among the Greeks.