Written by London Swaminathan

Date: 21 October 2017

Time uploaded in London- 18-53

Post No. 4323

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Rig Veda is the oldest religious book; and that is the oldest anthology. It is full of mystery and history. It shows a civilised society with very high values. The Vedic seers praised hospitality and charity. They made it one of the six tasks for Brahmins; they can accept donation but they must also give. Tamil literature also praised hospitality and charity. Tamils consider Tirukkural, the didactic book with 1330 couplets, as the Tamil Veda. It is authored by Tiruvalluvar, the greatest of the Tamil poets. Though Rig Veda and Tamil Veda are thousands of years apart, the values remained same throughout the vast land, then the world’s largest country.

The Vedic and Tamil poets were dead against the misers. They went even to the extent of preaching violence against the stingy fellows. The poets of the Rig Veda and Tamil Veda advocates arm twisting and jaw breaking tactics to extract money from the parsimonious and penurious lot.

Rig Veda says,

When will Indra trample, like a weed; the man who hath no gifts for him? RV 1-84-8

“Slay the niggards”- says another Vedic seer 1-184-2

“Wealth comes not to the niggard, unpleasant man” – RV 7-32-21

There are hundreds of places where the hospitality and charity are praised and penny-pinching, cheese-paring, ungenerous lot condemned.

Break the jaw; Crush him like Sugarcane: Valluvar

Tamil poet Tiruvaluvar never hesitated to advocate violence against the mean-minded, close fisted, Scrooge like fellows; he says in a Tirukkural couplet,

“At a mere word the good melt; but the mean, like the sugarcane, yield only under pressure” – 1078

Another translation of the same couplet: “Good men of virtue give charity at the mere call for help, but ignoble ones, will give only when crushed like sugarcane”.

Another couplet runs like this:

“The mean will not even shake off what sticks to their hands to any but those who would break their jaws with their clenched fists”- 1077

Another translation of the same couplet: Except to those who twist their hands and break their jaws, mean characters, will not even shake their food-moistened fingers.

S M Diaz in his Tirukkural commentary says “The well-known description of a bad miser in Tamil Nadu is that he will not even shake the hand with which he ate his food lest some starving crow should pick it up and eat. The idea is that the very fact that somebody will benefit from any action of theirs is repugnant to them. In this Kural/couplet, Valluvar has combined it, with certain other adverse qualifications of the miser, that he will part with that he has only to those, who are capable of twisting his hands and breaking his jaws. That is the only language, which he will understand”.

Tolkappiam and Bhagavad Gita

Oldest Tamil book Tolkappiam also says that those who don’t give will be shunned and those who give would be praised (Sutra 1036)

In the Bhagavad Gita, Lord Krishna says those who cook for themselves, verily eat sin (B.G.3-13)

Manu also says the same: “The person who cooks only for himself eats nothing but sin, for the food left over from sacrifice is the food intended for good men”- Manu 3-118

2000 years ago, Tamil poet Ilamperu Vazuthi (Purananuru verse 182) said that Tamils wouldn’t eat alone even if they get Indra’s Amrta (ambrosia from the Indraloka); Giving and sharing was in their blood.

–Subham–