Compiled by London swaminathan
Date: 1 FEBRUARY 2017
Time uploaded in London:- 9-32 am
Post No. 3595
Pictures are taken from different sources; thanks.
contact; swami_48@yahoo.com
Who is your reliable friend?
At home your wife is your reliable friend
In a foreign country, your knowledge or your wisdom is your best friend.
For a sick person, his or her medicine is the friend.
When you are dead Dharma is your best friend. Nothing else can accompany you. Whatever you have done good when you are alive will help you.
This is what our forefathers have found in course of thousands of years and have summarised their wisdom in two beautiful lines:-
Pravaase vidyaa- Knowledge in foreign country
Grhe bhaaryaa – Wife at home
Vyaadhitah ausadam- Medicine for the sick
Mrtasya dharma- Dharma for the dead
Vidyamitram pravaseshu bharyamitram Genesis ca
Vyaditasyausadam mitramdharmo mitram mrtasya ca
—-Sushasita Ratna Bhandagara159-287
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How do you get Friends?
Aurasa-Born of same parents
Krtasambhandha-Related by marriage
Vamsa-Lineage
Rakshaka-Protector in suffering
Aurasam krtasambandhamtatha vamsakrmaghatam
Rakshakam vysanebhya ca mitral njeyam caturvidham
—Kamandakiya Nitisastra
The protector in suffering is a very interesting one. In Tamil and Sanskrit literature, we come across several poems where in a girl falls in love with someone who protected her. This is a theme widely used in feature films as well. It may be saving someone is who is drowning or someone who is attacked by a tiger or someone dying in poverty.
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Tamil Wisdom
Tamil saint Tiruvalluvar has summarised the good things about friendship in ten couplets in the Tail Veda ‘Tirukkural’
Valluvar compares good and friends with the moon in one of his couplets:
The friendship of the worthy develops day by day like like the waxing crescent moon,
but foolish alliances deteriorate as the waning thereof –(Kural 782)
He says good friends are like great books:
As one sees greater beauty and derives enhanced pleasures, from the deeper study of a great book, Noble friendships gain in worth and grace day by day (783)
Swimmer Flavia Zoccari’s wardrobe malfunction (valluvar used this as a simile)
He adds,
Friendship is not for laughing and merry making. It is to hit at wrong movements by harsh advice.(784).
But Valluvar is at his best when he talks about how quick one should help one’s friend in distress:
Like the hand that, that goes to the rescue when a garment slips, stepping into help
When a friend faces adversity, is true friendship (788)
This is reflex action. When one’s garments slips, the hand picks it up quickly. We have seen many such awkward moments in the public events. Valluvar must also have seen such slips!
There are beautiful quotations about Friendship in Panchatantra and Valmiki Ramayana. I will give them in another post.
–subham–
Tamil and Vedas 