The first part of the blog covered some awesome facts on Thirukurral, one of the most important treatises of ethics in Tamil literature. We will cover a few more dot points on the intriguing facts of Thirukkural that will simply ‘wow’ you:
- Though there are 247 Tamil alphabets, you can only find 37 alphabets used in the Thirukkural.
- There are only two flowers in the entire book: Kuvalai (Cup Flower) and Anicham (Scarlet Pimpernel).
- There is only fruit mentioned in the book: Nezlhunji.
- There is only seed mentioned in the book: Kundrimani (Crab’s eye tree)
- Only two trees feature in the book: Palm and Bamboo.
- The alphabet that features the most in the book is ‘னி’. It appears 1705 times.
- Two alphabets appear only once: ளீ, ங.
- Interestingly, two keywords தமிழ் (Tamil), கடவுள் (Tamil for ‘God’) do not appear even once in the entire book.
- The first Tirrukkrual (and Naladiyar) texts were published by Gnanaprakasam in 1812, and printed at the Masadinacaritai Printers in Chennai.
- The total number of words is 14,000.
- Thirukkural has in total 42,194 letters.
- The number 9 was never used at all. Any guesses?
- The word ‘Kodi’ (Tamil for ‘Crore’) appears in seven places.
- The word ’70 kodi’ (70 ‘Crore’) feature once.
- It has been translated into 26 international languages.
- It has been translated into English by 40 prominent authors
- There are five kurals that won’t touch lips while reading.
- Thirrukual couplets are found all over inside the TamilNadu State Transport Corporation buses.
- A few couplets of Thirrukural have been prominently displayed in France railways. There is also a French translation of the Thirrukural found in a train in France.
You will be, for sure, bowled over by these above and more as we continue to discuss the astonishing facts of Thirrukural in the forthcoming blogs.