Sage Thiru-valluvar
"The Bard of Universal Man"
Click the links here to read Thirukural in
Hindi,
Arabic, French, Kannada, Konkani, Latin, Malayalam, Marathi, Russian

Dedication of Translation of Part - 1 : On Virtue
 

This part of our effort is dedicated to C. Rajagopalachari, affectionately called “Rajaji.”

Mahatma Gandhi, the man who led India to freedom from British Rule thru a non-violent struggle, had called Rajaji "the keeper of my conscience". The man whom even Gandhi, himself more a saint than a politician, looked as the conscious keeper, would have been a man of great virtue. It is fitting that this effort be dedicated to Rajaji.

Rajaji was a man of many talents. His contribution to India strugggle for independence is comes out from Jawahar Lal Nehru's comments in his own autobiography of how Rajaji's "brilliant intellect, selfless character, and penetrating powers of analysis have been a tremendous asset to our cause [of struggle for independence]". He was the Governor General of India – taking over from the last British Viceroy of India, and was the Chief Minister of Tamil Nadu state of India after India gained independence.

In 1954, Richard Nixon, then Vice President of USA, met Rajaji. They discussed nuclear weapons and "... they discussed the spiritual life, particularly rereincarantion and predestination. Nixon filled three pages of notes recording what the sage had told him, claiming in his memoirs thirty-six years later that the afternoon 'had such a dramatic effect on me that I used many of his thoughts in my speeches over the next several years'."[Nixon, A Life, Jonathan Aitken. Regnery Publishing, Inc. p.228]

Rajaji was invited to the White House by President Kennedy; perhaps the only civilian, not in power, ever to be accorded formal state reception. The two discussed various matters and it is said that the great Indian statesman tried to impress on the young President the folly of an arms race - even one which the US could win. At the end of the meeting President Kennedy remarked:

"This meeting had the most civilizing influence on me. Seldom have I heard a case presented with such precision, clarity and elegance of language".

Of his intelligence, Jawahar Lal Nehru, the first Prime Minister of independent India remarked:

"Rajaji represents fundamentally the highest type of mind in India."

All the above achievements are great but we revere him equally, if not more, for concise English translations two ancient Indian epics – the Ramayana and the Mahabharata. The second epic is considered to be the longest poem in the world – with about 1, 00,000 verses – and given his intelligence, none was more suited than Rajaji to extract its gist into a short book in English.

Rajaji has also made a partial translation of Thirukural.

Born in 1878, he died at the ripe old age of 94 years, in 1972.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chakravarti_Rajagopalachari, retrieved on 16th May 2008

Rosa and Billie in Lap of Thiruvalluvar
School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS), London, UK
Credit: Bowbrick, Flickr

References