Talk:Kural

Substance of the work section etc expansion / rewrite

Tirukkural has three parts. This section (and the general tone of the article) is almost entirely about virtue, the first part of the text. All three parts should be covered. Given the fact that the second part (politics, statecraft) is just about twice the size of first (virtue) and about three times the third (love), a more balanced section/article would include much more about the second part – porul – and rest accordingly. Another issue with the article is the use of questionable sources, rather than peer-reviewed scholarship and similar RS. Additional comments and suggestions for this important article are welcome. Ms Sarah Welch (talk) 11:07, 8 October 2019 (UTC)

Yes, it makes sense. We may need to add some more about Porul and Inbam (it's there to some extent now). However, we need not go by sheer size of the three books since the whole work is centered around "aram" (dharma) and hence needs more emphasis on ethics/virtue. Like you said, some more info on the other two books will give a more complete picture of the work. Will do it in the coming days. Also am gathering every source available to me (from ancient to modern), so should you feel any source appear spurious please don't hesitate to mark/delete it or notify me. All we need is the best sources available. Thanks for revamping the article. Coming to the tone of the article, given the Kural itself emphasize "aram" throughout the work (in all its three books), the tone of the article should invariably remain focused on virtue rather than anything else. That said, I feel the same tone needs to be maintained. Rasnaboy (talk) 09:41, 9 October 2019 (UTC)

Virtue section/aspects are important indeed, but this important text has much on forts, statecraft, army, king, ministers, etc. All this needs to be summarized. On sources: this article should reflect the peer-reviewed and mainstream scholarly sources. We should avoid questionable/SPS/websites/other unreliable sources per RS guidelines. I would also recommend avoiding NON-ENG sources because personal-translation-then-summary of NON-ENG sources can introduce OR. Tirukkural has attracted much English language scholarship. I will try to return to this article in a week or two from now. Ms Sarah Welch (talk) 15:51, 9 October 2019 (UTC)

Thank you, Sarah, for reviewing the article. That's a long pending task. Am yet to review your changes fully. Will review it probably over this weekend. Meanwhile, I would need few clarifications. I see, while removing several inaccurate sources, you have also removed the contents from some authentic sources, maybe mistakenly: for example, Zvalebil, 1973, pp.156-171; Manavalan, 2009, pp.26–27; Ramasamy, 2001, pp.28–47; Sanjeevi, 1973, pp.44-49; Ilankumaran, 2018, p.xi; etc. And is not Sanjeevi (1973) (published by the University of Madras Press) to be considered a scholarly one (as are others)? The Malayalam manuscript of 1595 info was taken from that. This has also been removed from the article. I strongly feel we may need to add some of these, if not all, back in the article. Will add them back once we come to a consensus. Thanks again for all the help. Rasnaboy (talk) 14:14, 22 October 2019 (UTC)

Since you did not provide edit diffs, here is the generic answer: I removed repetitions (and that removed some of these sources too). There is no need to summarize/repeat the same thing, two or three times, in this or any other wikipedia article. The note on the 16th-century Malayalam Tirukkural manuscript is still in the article, in two sections! even after cleanup. One in Translations section sourced to Zvelebil, and another sourced to Sanjeevi in Publication section. The cited pages from Manavalan were mostly relying on colonial-era / non-HISTRS sources, and this is not okay. We should try to summarize from more recent peer-reviewed scholarship (last 50 or so years). I plan to continue further cleanup. Ms Sarah Welch (talk) 14:49, 22 October 2019 (UTC)

Rasnaboy: One additional note... I have been finding too much OR and WP:Synthesis. In some cases, the cited source(s) did not verify the old version, not even vaguely, either on the alleged page numbers or anywhere else in that source. That is disappointing. Your help and a careful check of the old version's cited sources would be most welcome. Ms Sarah Welch (talk) 21:26, 22 October 2019 (UTC)

Sure. Will do. I happened to see such instances, too. One thing I find confounding sometimes is to decide whether the source is scholarly. The reason why I included Robinson and other sources. Hope your expertise will help me with that. Thank you. Rasnaboy (talk) 05:56, 23 October 2019 (UTC)

133 Chapter titles

@Rasnaboy: with this edit, you changed many of the 133 chapter titles. Do you have a scholarly source that supports the changes you made? FWIW, I prefer the chapter titles as translated by Kamil Zvelebil, here (pages 160–163). Ms Sarah Welch (talk) 20:24, 26 October 2019 (UTC)

Forgot to mention that. The previous one was too vague and many were unclear unless you read the chapter for yourself. So I took the simplest titles from the "Compendium of Tirukkural Translations in English" by A. A. Manavalan (2010). (4 vols.) Central Institute of Classical Tamil, a compilation of 18 English translations. Nevertheless, do you think we should go by the titles by the same author throughout? That's kinda vague in certain chapters. The earlier one (before changing) was that of G. U. Pope (1886). Thanks. Rasnaboy (talk) 10:11, 27 October 2019 (UTC)

In that case, we can either use Zvelebil or revert it to G.U. Pope's. Rasnaboy (talk) 10:14, 27 October 2019 (UTC)

We should generally avoid non-HISTRS and pre-1960 translations by Christian missionaries, except in sections such as the history of translations/publication and the reception. Manavalan (2010) is just a compilation of very old (outdated) to old sources. For the chapter list, Zvelebil's titles in the source I linked above, or P.S. Sundaram's titles published by Penguin (2005, ISBN 978-0144000098), would be better. Let us strive for quality/accuracy/honesty and NPOV per peer-reviewed scholarship, as our admins and the arbcom have repeatedly affirmed. Take Chapter 3 title for example. The latest edit made it "The Greatness of Righteous Persons". Zvelebil titles it as "The greatness of those who have renounced", while P.S. Sundaram titles it as "Ascetics". There is a big difference between "righteous persons" (generic), versus "renounced/ascetics" (sadhu/bhikshu/sannyasi/monk/nun). Similarly in Chapter 7, there is a difference between "children" (sons+daughters) after the latest edit, versus "sons" in both Zvelebil and Sundaram. Pick Zvelebil or Sundaram or some such recent scholarly version, stick with it please, and intext mention the author(s) – with a cite – right between "Outline" and "Book I" per our WP:Plagiarism guidelines. Ms Sarah Welch (talk) 14:13, 27 October 2019 (UTC)

List of translated languages

@User:Sarah. Should we necessarily list the languages the Kural had been translated by the 1970s (under the "Translations" section)? As the respective articles have already been linked in the section, am wondering whether we can do away with the bullet list. Am not removing it as of now. Rasnaboy (talk) 17:14, 27 October 2019 (UTC)

Let us keep it. While some of the translations are linked elsewhere in this article, others are not. The list of languages is notable for its diversity and shows the text's significance. The list cites a scholarly source. The ideal format would be a table, where we have a link or cite to the translation in each language. We are not there yet. A shortlist suffices for now. Ms Sarah Welch (talk) 17:31, 27 October 2019 (UTC)

I just noticed the fact that the Tamil Nadu government officially declared 31 BCE as the year of Valluvar has been removed. Although the date of Valluvar is still debatable, the fact that the government has officially adopted a date is still a fact of encyclopedic merit and can be included in the "Date" section of the article. What do you think? Rasnaboy (talk) 15:30, 30 October 2019 (UTC)

Repetitive removal of content

@50.121.72.4: why edit war with such edits? Zvelebil does state Uttaravedam. Ms Sarah Welch (talk) 01:44, 7 November 2019 (UTC)

Requested move 24 October 2021

The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review after discussing it on the closer's talk page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

The result of the move request was: moved to Kural per the discussion below. —usernamekiran • sign the guestbook • (talk) 16:50, 3 December 2021 (UTC)

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Tirukkuṟaḷ → Thirukkural – The more common name, and the right way to pronounce it. Renders 8,74,000 G-Hits, whereas the current title renders 80,500 hits. Kailash29792 (talk) 05:46, 24 October 2021 (UTC)— Relisting. —usernamekiran • sign the guestbook • (talk) 03:21, 2 November 2021 (UTC)— Relisting. —usernamekiran • sign the guestbook • (talk) 09:24, 21 November 2021 (UTC)

• Weak oppose: I agree that "Thirukkural" would be the nearest spelling, pronunciation wise. But I think "Tirukkural" is what is being used by scholars and academics; it's the public who tend to write with a "th" to approximate it to the native sound. Most of the prominent scholars and scholarly works, including Zvelebil ([1], [2], [3]), P. S. Sundaram, Stuart Blackburn ([4]), Oxford Reference Dictionary of Hinduism ([5]), Encyclopaedia of Tamil Literature ([6]), The Penguin Book of Tamil Poetry ([7]), etc. use "Tirukkural". Even people like G. U. Pope and V. V. S. Aiyar tend to call it "Tirukkural" and "Tiruvalluvar" although they mostly use the term "Kural" in their works. Moreover, it's the typical way of anglicizing (like "Tamil" rather than "Thamil"), perhaps the reason I presume scholars are writing this way. Rasnaboy (talk) 10:11, 24 October 2021 (UTC)

  For this reason, maybe a footnote involving ISO or IPA (similar to Ala Vaikunthapurramuloo) could be added here. Kailash29792 (talk) 05:38, 25 October 2021 (UTC)

• Move to Kural. It seems like this is the WP:COMMONNAME for this subject, and it's also shorter and more concise, so per article titling policies it looks the best. Note that Kural already redirects here.  — Amakuru (talk) 11:41, 15 November 2021 (UTC)
• Sadly it seems there is not going to be any consensus here, but as a last ditch effort, pinging @Kailash29792 and Rasnaboy: do either of you want to comment on Amakuru's Kural proposal? Even if it's not your first choice, would you find it preferable to the current title? Colin M (talk) 00:25, 3 December 2021 (UTC)
• I would prefer the new title have no diacritics. Kailash29792 (talk) 01:31, 3 December 2021 (UTC)
• That sounds fine to me. "Kural" is also one of the most common titles given to the work. Rasnaboy (talk) 04:30, 3 December 2021 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Masterpiece?

Seems like this article has too much of calling it a "masterpiece", just search for that word and see how many times it's used. That doesn't feel like something typical on Wikipedia. Like saying it's considered a masterpiece once is fine, but it continuously being referred to that randomly, like "despite being a masterpiece" makes the article feel too subjective.