Page:The Kural or The Maxims Of Tiruvalluvar.pdf/49

 Dr Pope repeats in substance what Beschi, Digot, and others have written, and speaks of the Kural as "the one oriental book, much of whose teaching is an echo of the Sermon on the Mount," and says of the author, “Without doubt Christian influences most affected him * * * * we see in Tiruvalluvar a noble, truth-loving and devout man, feeling in the darkness after God, if haply he might find him." And in another place, with a patronising air towards the great sage and his people he remarks, "I suppose he was not satisfied with the glimpses he had obtained of man's future, and awaited for light; or, perhaps, he thought his people not prepared for higher teaching." The reverend gentleman insinuates in these and similar remarks that Tiruvalluvar's book could not have been so moral in its tone but for his having listened to the doctrines of Christ from the descendants of those who must have, according to a scarcely credible theory, received the teachings of the Apostle St Thomas at Mylapore.

Writing as Tiruvalluvar does on almost all things that concern man's life here as well Rh