Page:The Kural or The Maxims Of Tiruvalluvar.pdf/50

as hereafter, it is easy to find parallels to his maxims among the greater writers of almost every nation in the world. But that is no reason for at once jumping to the conclusion that he must have listened to the words of any sage in particular. Whatever be the truth as to St Thomas having preached at Mylapore, the author of the Kural does not show that he has ever heard of any of the peculiar doctrines of Christianity. Christians have a tendency to think that the ideas of forgiving one's enemies, abstaining from returning evil for evil, humility etc. have been first taught to the world only by Jesus Christ. To say that these ideas are not autochthonous to any great nation that has developed a distinct civilisation of its own, one must possess a much greater amount of learning than falls to the lot of the ordinary man. But it can be safely asserted that these ideas were the common property of great minds at least four centuries before Jesus was born. And Tiruvalluvar had enough in the sacred literature of India, to say nothing of his own Illumined Self, to enable him to build these truths in his grand scheme of life