Inbam (Kural book)

The Book of Inbam, in full Iṉbattuppāl (Tamil: இன்பத்துப்பால், literally, "division of love"), or in a more sanskritized term Kāmattuppāl (Tamil: காமத்துப்பால்), also known as the Book of Love, the Third Book or Book Three in translated versions, is the third of the three books or parts of the Kural literature, authored by the ancient Indian philosopher Valluvar. Written in High Tamil distich form, it has 25 chapters each containing 10 kurals or couplets, making a total of 250 couplets all dealing with human love. The term inbam or kamam, which means 'pleasure', correlates with the third of the four ancient Indian values of dharma, artha, kama and moksha. However, unlike Kamasutra, which deals with different methods of lovemaking, the Book of Inbam expounds the virtues and emotions involved in conjugal love between a man and a woman, or virtues of an individual within the walls of intimacy, keeping aṟam or dharma as the base.[1][2]

  1. ^ Kumaravelan, 2008, pp. 4–17.
  2. ^ Lal, 1992, pp. 4333–4334.