Veteran archaeologist R. Nagaswamy on Thursday defended his position that Tirukkural had Vedic roots.
“This is not just my view, but the view of great scholars before me for the past 1,000 years,” Dr. Nagaswamy said, in a statement issued in response to the DMK president M. K. Stalin’s recent observation that he had belittled poet-saint Tiruvalluvar by linking Tirukkural to the Vedas.
Quoting Parimelalagar, Joseph Beschi (popularly called Veeramamunivar), Ellis, G.U. Pope and U.V. Swaminatha Iyer, he recalled that they had all said “in no equivocal terms that Tirukkural has roots in Vedas.” Apart from stating, in his work “Tiruvalluvar Nayanar” (1886), that Tirukkural followed Bhagavad Gita, Pope mentioned that Tiruvalluvar used Chandogya Upanashid – ‘Tat Tvam Asi.’ By tracing the links of Tirukkural to Manu Dharma Sastra more than 50 times, he had even held the view that many verses of Tirukkural were verbatim translations of the Sastra.
The archaeologist asserted that in terms of structure of the text, division of subjects and sequence of the arrangement of verses, Tirukkural had closely followed the Sastra.
As for his nomination to the selection committee for awards of the Central Institute of Classical Tamil, Dr. Nagaswamy said he had not received any communication till date about the assignment and also the term of reference.
