Written by London Swaminathan 

Date: 5 DECEMBER 2017 

Time uploaded in London-  7–49 am

Post No. 4462

Pictures shown here are taken from various sources such as Facebook friends, Books, Google and newspapers; thanks.

(Tamil Joke: Husband:While I read my love letters now which i sent you before marriage, i feel they were nonsense/rubbish; Wife: Oh, for me they looked nonsense/rubbish even before marriage!)

Manu in his Manava Dhrama Shastra and Tiru Valluvar in his Tamil Veda Tirukkural support marriage; but Jain Munis who composed several hundred poems in Tamil in Naladiyar and Pazamozi had different views. Dr G U Pope, Christian priest and Tamil scholar, Father Constantine Beschi, Jesuit priest from Italy and a Tamil scholar had compared several couplets in Tirukkural and Manu’s Law book. Dr G U Popes puts forth several arguments in his translation of Tirukkural, published in 1886, to prove that Tiruvalluvar, author of Tirukkural was not a Jain. One of the arguments is about marriage.

Tiruvalluvar, an ardent Hindu supports marrying. Dr G U Pope compared couplet 41 with Manu’s 3-78 and showed Naladiyar, the poems of Jains were opposed to marriage.

We know the views of the Greek philosopher Socrates:

“By all means marry; if you get good wife, you will become happy; if you get a bad one, you will become a philosopher.”

Tamil poet Valluvar says,

He is the true householder who helps the three orders of the virtuous (Brahmachari, Vanaprastan, Sanyasin) in their home life is the fruit of love begotten by a harmonious, right path of life.

Even before Valluvar, Manu said the same in Sanskrit:

“3.78. Because men of the three (other) orders are daily supported by the householder with (gifts of) sacred knowledge and food, therefore (the order of) householders is the most excellent order (Manu).”

Marriage is throwing Stones at you!

Naladiyar, the didactic book has 400 verses composed by Jain saints of Tamil Nadu who were great Tamil scholars. Here are two poems opposing marriage:

“Since it is a hard thing for a husband to reject his wife though she may neither have borne children nor have a good disposition, the wise have, on account of the misery entailed by matrimony, called it a thing to be eschewed – Naladiyar verse 56.

“Though one is advised to eschew marriage, he eschews it not; though the sound of death-drum pierces his ear , he heeds it not. He moreover takes in another wife and indulges in the delusion of matrimonial pleasures. These the wise say ‘ like one stoning himself’ “- Naladiyar 364

‘to be or not to be’ is up to you!

–subham–