Tirukkural

A Tamil classic of 1,330 couplets (kural) arranged in 133 chapters of ten, attributed to the poet Thiruvalluvar, about whom almost nothing is reliably known. It is divided into three books, on virtue (aṟam), wealth or public life (poruḷ) and love (iṉpam), echoing the Sanskrit aims of dharma, artha and kāma but with no separate book on liberation. The book on virtue opens with praise of God, rain and ascetics, then treats household life, hospitality, gratitude, patience, truthfulness, refraining from killing and from eating meat, and the renunciant's discipline. The book on wealth, the longest, advises rulers and subjects on justice, learning, choosing ministers, friendship, wise speech, the army and the land. The book on love traces courtship and married love in the conventions of classical Tamil poetry. Its moral teaching is largely free of sectarian doctrine, so readers from many religious traditions have claimed it as their own.

It is one of the most widely translated works of Indian ethics, and its brief, memorable couplets give practical guidance on character, friendship, leadership and love that still reads naturally.