eras, they do not necessarily mean an interconnection but on the other hand they can show us that the human mind has thought in the same direction all over the world.⁶⁶

He pays a great tribute to the Kuṟaḷ when he says “......in value it far outweighs the whole of the remaining Tamil literature and is one of the select number of great works which have entered into the very soul of a whole people and which can never die.”⁶⁷

He further adds, “The Kural owes much of its popularity to its exquisite poetic form.” Pope very aptly describes the Kuṟaḷ as “a couplet containing a complete and striking idea expressed in a refined and intricate meter.”⁶⁸ “No translation can convey an idea of its charming effect.....It is truly an apple of gold in a net work of silver.” apart from this, he finds a similarity in the Greek epigrams in Martial and in the Latin elegiacverses.⁶⁹

He (Pope) calls Tiruvalluvar, “a great Tamil master of the sentences........” who made his work “a possession for ever” and “a delight for many generations.”⁷⁰ What Aristotle did not mention has been repeatedly taught by the Tamil moralist and Dr. Pope feels that there is nothing to “unteach in the moral lessons of the Kural rightly understood.”⁷¹

Pope shows the different kinds of metre in the Kuṟaḷ. There are three varieties of it:- (1) The grave recitative-of which there is only one i.e. Kuṟaḷ 397 - Dr. Pope says “the effect is very heavy.”⁷² (2) The balanced recitative- there are many of this kind. The rhythm is lively here. The next is the “mixed

66. Meenakshisundram, K. “A Study On The Poetical works of Subramania Bharati” P. 108,109.

67. P.T.S.K. P. (iii)

68. Ibid P. (vi)

69. Ibid P. (vi)

70. Ibid P. (vi)

71. Ibid P. (xii)

72. Ibid P. (xxviii)