Reflections on the Deivathin Kural - V 1/E 1

Namaste and welcome to this podcast - Reflections on the Deivathin Kural. This is episode-1 covering the first two chapters of volume-1 of the book.

We speak of “must-read” books but quite often, the irony is that these “must-read” books are not read by a majority of people. One such book is the magnum opus: Deivathin Kural, “The Voice of God”

Of the several reasons or limitations for this, one key reason is the fact that it is written in Tamizh, limiting its reach to only those who can read and understand Tamizh. There is of course an English translation titled “The voice of God''. However, the English translation suffers from poor quality and more importantly in its failure to capture the beauty and essence of the original Tamizh version. It is no easy task to emulate the inimitable R. Ganapti who is the Tamizh author. He wrote in a style and idiom that captures the Paramacharya’s words while giving the impression that the Paramacharya himself is speaking to us.

Another issue is the sheer size of the work - 7,500 to 8,00 pages spread across 7 volumes - who reads that much nowadays? On top of all this the 7 volumes deal with only one topic - DHARMA which in itself is a limitation in the times we live in. One additional problem that is unique to the present times is the paradigm shift in how content is consumed today - watching and listening is more popular than reading. The latter may be more immersive and intense but the former is more convenient and easy - therefore this podcast which is imagined as a series of reflective episodes on the content in the book - it is not a reading but rather a paraphrased or reflective recalling of the content along with an attempt to examine and develop ideas and themes that flow out of the content in the book and hopefully make sense in the bustle and bustle of daily life.