Page:The Kural or The Maxims Of Tiruvalluvar.pdf/25

 writing in his able work on Chêran Chen-Kuṭṭuvan, has recently suggested the 5th century A. D. as the probable date of the two works above mentioned. But as it is admitted that the Kural is earlier in date than those two poems, this theory does not affect the limits above fixed for our Poet.

The very name of the poet is unknown to history, for the word Tiruvalluvar only means "the devotee of the valluva caste." The valluvas are pariahs who proclaim the orders and commands promulgated by the king, by beat of drum from the back of elephants. From an encomiastic stanza on the author which tradition has preserved, it appears that he was born at Madura, the capital of the Pânḍias. Tradition declares that he was the child of a Brâhman father named Bhagavan and a pariah mother Adi who had been brought up by another Brâhman and given in marriage to Bhagavan. Six other children are named as the issue of this union, all of whom have dabbled in poetry.

Not much else is known about Tiruvalluvar besides the following bare facts. He was Rh