#thirukural

[Duty Of The Ruler]

The culmination of his work was a comparative study of the Thirukkural and the Manusmriti. He elaborated on how the Manusmriti was a religious and casteist text while the Thirukkural was diametrically opposite to the same. Furthermore, he connected the values found in the Thirukkural to Periyar’s ideas, thus establishing Periyar as the contemporary icon of the Tamil cultural revolution. Anaimuthu’s methodology of reading ancient Tamil texts with a contemporary perspective fleshed out a Tamil tradition that was anti-caste and anti-superstition. He traced the entry of the laws of Manu in the formation of the state in Tamil Nadu in detail. Most kings and rulers in the Tamil region accepted the laws of Manu. Therefore, the state in Tamil Nadu was essentially Brahmanical. He pitched the Thirukkural as a counter to that Brahmanical state. This reading is essential to understand Periyar’s Thirukkural campaign. B. R. Ambedkar and Periyar rightfully argued how caste is the primary unit of Indian social structure, and how religion justifies this caste system. Texts such as the Manusmriti, the Bhagavad Gita, the Ramayana and the Mahabharata form the bedrock of this system. Annihilation of caste is the pre-condition for social liberation; in order to achieve this, religion has to be eradicated; and the struggle for social justice is the means to achieve it. Both Ambedkar and Periyar spent their whole lives attempting to achieve this.

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