“The nation remembers Thiruvalluvar, the Tamil deity of India, with deep gratitude and great reverence. Thousands of years ago, he gave the Thirukkural, an incomparable Thirukkural for every individual and organisation,” Ravi said in the post.
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“In the ancient civilisation of India, he taught us the sublime virtues of devotion to God and the depth of morality in our individual and collective lives. He laid down a comprehensive code of conduct for all sections of society.”
The Thirukkural is a classic Tamil text of 1,330 short couplets believed to have been written by Thiruvalluvar.
The DMK, its parent body, the Dravidar Kazhagam, and the Congress party, condemned the BJP and the governor, saying they were “saffronising” the secular Tamil poet, who has traditionally been depicted in plain white attire without any caste or religious markers.
“It is not acceptable to saffronise Thiruvalluvar. Tamil Nadu Governor R.N. Ravi has been doing it again and again. He has to apologise to the Tamil people for insulting Thiruvalluvar and Tamil Nadu,” Tamil Nadu Congress Committee president K. Selvaperunthagai told the media in Chennai.
The DMK’s mouthpiece Murasoli in its editorial on 18 January, suggested the governor to first wear saffron dresses to prove his saffron love.
This is not the first time that the BJP and the governor have posted images of Thiruvalluvar dressed in saffron. In November 2019, the party’s Tamil Nadu unit first posted an image of Thiruvalluvar in saffron on its Twitter handle.
Since then, the party has consistently used this depiction, replacing the traditional portrayal of Thiruvalluvar in plain white attire, free from caste or religious markers.
No use of the word ‘God’ in verses
Scholars and historians have largely rejected the BJP’s interpretation of Thiruvalluvar as a Hindu saint. Even as the BJP and some Hindu Right-wing leaders seek to appropriate the Tamil poet, Tamil scholars and historians say it is incorrect to identify Thiruvalluvar as a Hindu saint because none of his verses in the Thirukkural had any religious connotations.
Tamil scholar and Maatrukkalam Theatre Group founder Dileep Kumar says Thiruvalluvar doesn’t use the word ‘God’ in his verses, which, he argues, clearly demonstrates that he was a secular Tamil poet and not a religious saint.
“One should not confuse the words ‘deivam’ (divine) and ‘kadavul’ (God). If one reads Thirukkural carefully, you will only find the term ‘deivam’ and not God,” Dileep Kumar told ThePrint.
“He advocated for the worship of nature and ancestors rather than any idol worship, which is the base of the Hindu religion. In all the places, he refers to ‘deivam’ as a clan deity or ancestor deity,” added Kumar, who is also the former head of the Tamil department at Hindustan Arts and Science College in Coimbatore.
However, BJP spokesperson S.G. Suryah said a temple built and maintained by the Tamil Nadu government’s Hindu Religious and Charitable Endowment department for Thiruvalluvar is proof of Hindu identity.
Since 2019, the BJP has actively sought to make Thiruvalluvar an icon of its own. Prime Minister Narendra Modi has quoted Thirukkural couplets on various occasions.
During a visit to Singapore in September 2024, Modi announced that India’s first Thiruvalluvar cultural centre would be established there.
In honor of great Tamil poet-philosopher Thiruvalluvar, the Cultural Center in Jaffna was today renamed as ‘Thiruvalluvar Cultural Center’ in a ceremony attended by HC @santjha, Minister of Buddhasasana, Religious & Cultural Affairs Hon. Sunil Senevi & Governor Northern Province. pic.twitter.com/TbeggDDNmZ
— India in Sri Lanka (@IndiainSL) January 18, 2025
More recently, on 18 January, a cultural centre in Sri Lanka was officially renamed the Thiruvalluvar Cultural Center. It was set up with a grant of about $12 million from the Indian government.
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Identity of Thiruvalluvar
The question of Thiruvalluvar’s religious identity has deep historical roots. The first printed edition of the Thirukkural was published in 1812 by Tamil scholar Vedagiri Mudaliar with support from Francis Whyte Ellis, then the collector of the Madras Presidency.
According to Dileep Kumar, it was in the early 19th century that efforts were made to depict Thiruvalluvar with an image.
“It was Francis Whyte Ellis who released a gold coin featuring the image of Thiruvalluvar, which had Thiruvalluvar on one side and a star on the other side,” he said.
Historians felt the image of Thiruvalluvar on the coin resembled a Jain sage with his face and head shaved. Late epigraphist Iravatham Mahadevan propounded that this image showed Thiruvalluvar might have had Jain affiliations.
Several efforts have also been made to depict Thiruvalluvar’s image with the little that people know through the Thirukkural verses.
Mahadevan said in his book, ‘Early Tamil Epigraphy: From the Earliest Times to the Sixth Century AD’, the use of phrases like ‘Aadi Bhagavan’, ‘Malarmisai Ekinan’ and ‘Aravaali Andhanan’ suggested that Thiruvalluvar might have been influenced by Jainism or was part of Jainism.
“However, the texts transcend religious boundaries, advocating for a universal moral code,” Mahadevan wrote.
Although there were several other attempts to depict Thiruvalluvar visually, none of them were unanimously accepted by Tamil scholars at the time.
However, in 1960, Tamil scholars accepted an image of Thiruvalluvar in a white scarf with a pen in one hand and palm leaf in the other.
Historian Senthalai V. Gowthaman told ThePrint the need for a portrait arose only when people decided to release a postage stamp of Thiruvalluvar. “It was in 1959 that poet Bharathidasan commissioned artist Venugopal Sharma to draw a portrait of Thiruvalluvar with just the help of the Thirukkural. Venugopal drew the portrait under the supervision of Bharathidasan,” he said.
According to him, after the portrait was completed in 1960, a Tamil conference at Thanjavur Ramanathan Sabha with about 49 participating Tamil scholars unanimously accepted the portrait of Thiruvalluvar without caste, religious or sectarian markers.
“It was not just accepted by the Tamil scholars. Politicians from all walks of life—including former chief ministers M. Bhaktavatsalam, K. Kamaraj and C.N. Annadurai—and Shaivaite spiritual leader Kirupanandha Variyar visited the house of Venugopal Sharma and saw the portrait. It was only after all their approval that a postage stamp was issued,” Gowthaman told ThePrint.
Thiruvalluvar’s image entered the Tamil Nadu assembly in 1964 when the Congress was in power. The portrait without any caste or religious marks was inaugurated by the then Vice President, Zakir Husain, in the assembly.
The image was not just accepted by scholars and politicians but was also officially recognised by the government in 1967. According to Dravidian historian K. Tirunavukarasu, the portrait of Thiruvalluvar sketched by Venugopal Sharma was recognised soon after the DMK came to power in 1967.
“Later, after the DMK came to power in 1967, then chief minister and DMK general secretary C.N. Annadurai conferred the title Kalaimamani (the highest civilian award in the Tamil Nadu) on artist Venugopal Sharma,” Tirunavukarasu told ThePrint.
He also said that the same portrait was “nationalised” in 1989 when M. Karunanidhi was chief minister—in other words, anybody could use the portrait without any copyright claim.
“It is the only portrait that was nationalised, so that anybody can print and anybody can use the image,” Tirunavukarasu said.
Is Thirukkural a Hindu text?
While epigraphists like Iravatham Mahadevan have suggested that Thiruvalluvar may have been influenced by Jainism or even been a part of it, Tamil scholars see the Thirukkural as a work of ethics and principles rather than a religious text.
Tamil scholar and former head of the Tamil department at the Karpagam Academy of Higher Education, P. Tamilarasi told ThePrint that Thiruvalluvar belonged to everyone.
“Using one couplet and a few words, some might argue he was a Jain. Others, using just a few words, might claim he was a Hindu. But the righteousness he spoke of, the justice he emphasised, does not belong to any religion. It is justice for humankind,” said Tamilarasi.
Dileep Kumar agreed that the Thirukkural and Thiruvalluvar do not belong to one religion, but doesn’t believe the principles are entirely relevant in contemporary India.
He cited a couplet on women that translates as ‘The woman who doesn’t worship the divine (kadavul) will worship and honour her husband; rain will fall as if he commanded it’.
“I do not know if we can expect women to be like this in modern times. Given the social context of that time, such principles might have been necessary, which is why he wrote them,” the Tamil scholar said.
He also argued that the debate over Thiruvalluvar’s identity was unnecessary because we cannot be certain whether a single individual wrote all of the verses attributed to him.
“We don’t know if one person wrote it all, or if the total of 1,330 couplets is really all that was written by him.”
Tamilarasi also supported this view, emphasising that dressing Thiruvalluvar in saffron and attributing him to a specific religion reflects a profound misunderstanding of his essence.
“The Thirukkural was not divided into sections like we have now as ‘Aram’ (virtue), ‘Porul’ (wealth), and ‘Inbam’ (pleasure). We have categorised them for our convenience after reading them,” she said.
(Edited by Sugita Katyal)
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