Third International Conference on Thirukkural - Thirukkural for World Peace and Harmony

Preface It gives me immense joy and happiness to bring out this commemorative volume on the Third International Conference on Thirukkural under the theme Thirukkural for World Peace and Harmony to be held at the UNESCO Auditorium, New Delhi, and the capital city of India. This volume is the outcome of one of our efforts to view Thirukkural as a Literature for Peace and Harmony that was composed in Tamilnadu at the end of a very vibrant and militant war-loving heroic age.

Consequently, this ethical corpus visualizes a peaceful social milieu with a modest king, efficient counselors and wise men, domestic life with excellent moral value and ascetics with grace and compassion and great leaders strong in moral behavior. This life of morality and wisdom is extended in Thirukkural to the entire globe so that there shall be world peace and harmony overcoming all conflicts and contradictions. The global appeal of Thirukkural which was composed 2000 years ago in the classical Tamil verse is indeed a great stride in building up a highly cultured and civilized contemporary society.

This theme of the present conference emanated as a result of my frequent discussions with Prof.

Armoogum Parsuramen who is completely engaged in the Kural mission with the zeal of a missionary. We decided to pursue our understanding of Thirukkural continuously in this new perspective after the Liverpool conference.

This concept was experimented in the international conference on Thirukkural held in Sydney, Australia on 31, July 2019 and this event has generated ample data for further studies in Thirukkural in the same perspective. The present third International conference is thematically a continuation of the previous conference held in Sydney.

Like the previous souvenir volume, the present volume is also intended to serve as a good source book on Thirukkural studies. It contains 24 articles in English and Tamil with its main focus on the thrust area namely Thirukkural for world peace and harmony.

This is undoubtedly a new way of looking at the maxims of Thirukkural. As an initial attempt, we have a few good articles in this volume which analyze Thirukkural from this new perspective. This volume also contains Greetings Messages from world leaders, scholars and lovers of Thirukkural. The abstracts of the conference papers add to the enhanced utility of this souvenir.

As usual, the preparation of this volume and the hosting of the conference in Delhi are largely supported by my friends and lovers of Thirukkural who travel with us continuously in this great pilgrimage.

Dr. Govindaswamy Rajagopal, Dr. V. Murugan and Ms. Ragini Kapoor, Delhi University, joined us in editing the articles for this souvenir. Dr. Gnanachandra Johnson edited the abstracts in Tamil while Dr. P.N. Diaz helped edit the abstracts in English.

Our friends Dr. V. Murugan and Dr. Joshua Kalapati helped a lot to finalize the theme of this conference. Our Delhi team helped in various ways to bring out this volume as a useful reference book to Thirukkural scholarship.

My wife Mrs. Indra Samuel and my daughter Ms. Sheeba Samuel worked hard with me to give a nice format and thematic design to the entire souvenir volume. Mr. I. Jeyabalan, our artist, deserves our appreciation for the attractive cover design Mis. Mohana printers deserve our admiration for the neat execution of the printing.

My wholehearted thanks are due to all our friends who have helped to give a good shape to this volume for the benefit of the lovers and scholars of Thirukkural all over the world.

Book's Contents and Sample Pages