At a public lecture on May 13, 1961 at the Kapaleeswarar temple in Chennai, Sarvepalli S. Radhakrishnan listened attentively to K.M. Balasubramaniam, who was speaking on Periyapuranam . Impressed with the talk, he urged the speaker to devote his skills and translate Tirukkural into English, just as he rendered Thiruvachagam into English.
Balasubramaniam, whose work on Manickavachagar’s composition had earned him the title, ''Thiruvachakamani'', told Dr. Radhakrishnan, who was the Vice-President then, that he was on the job. The author then expressed his wish that Dr. Radhakrishnan become President. And that moment came exactly a year later, on May 13. The year also witnessed the release of Balasubramaniam’s Tirukkural work, dedicated to Dr. Radhakrishnan, who had written the preface.
Now, 54 years later, the book was released on Wednesday for a new generation of readers.
“In Tamil literature, commentators with felicity of expression matching the original authors were placed on a par with them. K.M. Balasubramaniam was one such commentator,” said ''Sivalayam'' J. Mohan, publisher of the book. He has already published Balasubramaniam’s Thiruvachagam .
As an ardent supporter of Dravidar Kazhagam founder ''Periyar'' and subsequently, as a collaborator of DMK founder C.N. Annadurai, he accompanied the two leaders to Bombay to meet Mohamed Ali Jinnah to discuss the idea of ‘Dravida Nadu’ (Dravidian land). “Later, he became a spiritualist and delved deep into philosophy and Saivite literature. But he had a rational approach towards his translation. He even started translating Periyapuranam , but died in 1974 without completing it,” said Mr Mohan, an engineer-turned-entrepreneur.
Comprehensive, poetic
Many scholars, including Rev. Fr. C.J. Beschi, popularly known as ‘Viramaamunivar’, G.U. Pope, freedom fighter V.V.S. Iyer, Rajaji and V.R. Ramachandra Dikshitar have produced translations of Tirukkural , but Balasubramaniam’s version was, to many, more comprehensive and poetic.
The point is reiterated by Kamil Zvelebil, who in his preface to the book, said, “at last the English-speaking world will be in possession of a poetic translation of Tirukkural , in possession of an able rendering of this unique Tamil classic into English verse, which is without exaggeration and almost adequate to the original.”
Balasubramaniam also rendered into English the commentaries of Parimelazhagar, Manakudavar, and Kalingarayar, drawing substantially from parallels in the Bible and the Koran, from Shakespeare, Milton, Alexander Pope, Dryden, George Herbert, Francis Bacon and Dr. Johnson. In fact, 50 per cent of the 530 pages in the book are dedicated to detailed notes.
Suddhananda Bharathi, who has also translated Tirukkural into English, describes the essence of the book thus: “the author takes the ideas of Valluvar, and embellishes them, so the reader needs no other commentary.”
