Porul (Kural book)

The Book of Poruḷ, in full Poruṭpāl (Tamil: பொருட்பால்; lit. 'division of wealth' or 'polity'), also known as the Book of Wealth, Book of Polity, the Second Book or Book Two in translated versions, is the second 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 70 chapters each containing 10 kurals or couplets, making a total of 700 couplets all dealing with statecraft. Poruḷ, which means both 'wealth' and 'meaning', correlates with the second of the four ancient Indian values of dharma, artha, kama and moksha. The Book of Poruḷ deals with polity, or virtues of an individual with respect to the surroundings, including the stately qualities of administration, wisdom, prudence, nobility, diplomacy, citizenship, geniality, industry, chastity, sobriety and teetotalism, that is expected of every individual, keeping aṟam or dharma as the base.[1][2]

  1. ^ R. Kumaravelan (Ed.) 2008, pp. 4–17.
  2. ^ Mohan Lal 1992, pp. 4333–4334.