The Tamil philosopher Thiruvalluvar wrote 1,330 couplets somewhere between 300 BC and 500 AD, covering virtue, wealth, and love. The Tirukkural is quoted across forty languages by Hindus, Jains, Christians, Muslims, and secular readers alike, because it refuses to anchor its ethics in any single religious tradition. Every tradition has claimed it precisely because no tradition can own it. In a polarised Indian moment, that refusal is the most important lesson the book carries, and the reason it has outlived almost everything written around it.
