Ten Medieval Commentators


The Ten Medieval Commentators were a canonical group of Tamil scholars whose commentaries on the ancient Indian didactic work of the Kural are esteemed by later scholars as worthy of critical analysis. These poets lived in the Medieval era between the 10th and 13th centuries CE. Among these medieval commentaries, the commentaries of Manakkudavar and Parimelalhagar are considered pioneer by modern scholars.

Commentaries

The Kural remains the most reviewed work of the Tamil literature, with almost every scholar down the ages having written commentaries on it. Of the several hundred commentaries written on the didactic work over the centuries, the commentaries written by a group of ten medieval scholars are considered to have high literary value. The ten poets are:
Of these, only the commentaries of Manakkudavar, Paridhi, Pariperumal, Kaalingar, and Parimelalhagar are extant in their complete form. The commentaries of Dharumar, Dhamatthar, and Nacchar have survived only in fragmentary form, and those of Thirumalaiyar and Mallar are now lost completely. The oldest of these is the commentary of Manakkudavar, which is considered to be the closest to the original text of the Kural, and is considered the cornerstone against which other medieval commentaries are compared in order to find variations in them. Each commentators followed his own sense of logic in the arrangement of the chapters and the couplets within them. Researchers have found as many as 16, 20, 120, and 171 variations in the ordering of the Kural couplets by Pari Perumal, Paridhi, Parimelalhagar, and Kaalingar, respectively, with respect to the commentary by Manakkudavar. According to M. Shanmugham Pillai, there are about 305 textual variations in all the commentaries combined. The last of these medieval commentaries is that of Parimelalhagar, who wrote the commentary around 1271–1272 CE, as indicated in an inscription at the Varadharaja Perumal Temple at Kanchipuram. Parimelalhagar's commentary is followed ever since as the standard for numbering of the Kural chapters and the couplets within each chapter.

Chapter order variations

Valluvar wrote the Kural literature in three parts, namely, Book I, Book II, and Book III, containing a total of 133 chapters in all, without splitting the books further into any subdivisions. However, later scholars from both the Late Sangam period and the medieval era divided each book into various divisions known as iyal and grouped the chapters variously under each iyal. They also changed the ordering of the couplets within each chapter widely. These variations are not standard either but vary according to different commentators. While the variations in the ordering of the couplets according to various commentators are found across the work, variations in the grouping and ordering of chapters are found chiefly in the Book on Virtue.
The following table lists the variations between ordering of chapters in Book I by Manakkudavar and that by Parimelalhagar.
Manakkudavar's orderingParimelalhagar's ordering
Chapters under subdivision “Domestic virtue”
5. Household life
6. The virtues of a wife
7. Offspring
8. Loving-kindness
9. Hospitality
10. Not lying
11. Gratitude
12. Impartiality
13. Patience
14. Right conduct
15. Not coveting another's wife
16. Refraining from anger
17. Ahimsa/Not doing harm
18. Not killing
19. Shunning meat-eating
20. Not stealing
21. Dread of evil deeds
22. Social duty
23. Generosity
24. Glory		Chapters under subdivision “Domestic virtue”
5. Household life
6. The virtues of a wife
7. Offspring
8. Loving-kindness
9. Hospitality
10. Kindness of speech
11. Gratitude
12. Impartiality
13. Self-control
14. Right conduct
15. Not coveting another's wife
16. Patience
17. Not envying
18. Not coveting another's goods
19. Not backbiting
20. Not uttering useless words
21. Dread of evil deeds
22. Social duty
23. Generosity
24. Glory
Chapters under subdivision “Ascetic virtue”
25. Benevolence, mercy, and compassion
26. Kindness of speech
27. Self-control
28. Austerities
29. Hypocrisy
30. Not envying
31. Not coveting another's goods
32. Not backbiting
33. Not uttering useless words
34. Impermanence
35. Self-denial
36. Realization of the truth
37. Rooting out desire		Chapters under subdivision “Ascetic virtue”
25. Benevolence, mercy, and compassion
26. Shunning meat-eating
27. Austerities
28. Hypocrisy
29. Not stealing
30. Not lying
31. Refraining from anger
32. Ahimsa/Not doing harm
33. Not killing
34. Impermanence
35. Self-denial
36. Realization of the truth
37. Rooting out desire

The chapters "Shunning meat-eating," "Not stealing," "Not lying," "Refraining from anger," "Ahimsa," and "Non-killing", all of which originally appear under subsection "Domestic virtues" in Manakkudavar's version, appear under "Ascetic virtues" in Parimelalhagar's version. Similarly, the chapters "Kindness of speech," "Self-control," "Not envying," "Not coveting another’s goods," "Not backbiting," and "Not uttering useless words", which appear under "Ascetic virtue" in Manakkudavar's version, appear under "Domestic virtue" in Parimelalhagar's version.

Legacy

An old Tamil poem describes all these ten commentators thus:
Original:
தருமர் மணக்குடவர் தாமத்தர் நச்சர்
பரிதி பரிமே லழகர் திருமலையர்
மல்லர் பரிப்பெருமாள் காலிங்கர் — வள்ளுவர்நூற்கு
எல்லையுரை செய்தார் இவர்		Translation:
Dharumar Manakkudavar Dhamatthar Nacchar
Paridhi Parimel alhagar Thirumalaiyar
Mallar Pariperumal Kaalingar — Wrote these
For the Book of Valluvar faithful commentaries.

Citations