Thomas Hitoshi Pruiksma

A new translation of the classical Tamil masterpiece on ethics, power, and friendship, bringing Tiruvalluvar's poetry and philosophy to a new generation seeking practical wisdom and spiritual sustenance Drawing on the poetic tradition of W. S. Merwin, Wendell Berry, and William Carlos Williams, and nurtured by 2 decades of study under Tamil scholar Dr. K. V. Ramakoti, this new translation of the Kural by Thomas Hitoshi Pruiksma brings English readers closer than ever to the brilliant inner and outer music of Tiruvalluvar's work and ideas. Tiruvalluvar's Tirukkural is a masterwork of poetry and practical philosophy. On par with other world classics such as the Tao Te Ching, the Kural is a compendium of 1,330 short philosophical verses, or kurals, that together cover a wide range of personal and cosmic experience, such as-- POLITICS: Harsh rule that brings idiots together--nothingBurdens the earth more HOSPITALITY: The life that cherishes strangers each dayNever falls upon ruin FRIENDSHIP: Friendship is not a face smiling--friendshipIs a heart that smiles GREED: Those who won't give and enjoy--even with billionsThey have nothing Accompanying the translation is a foreword by the founder of the Institute for Sacred Activism, Andrew Harvey; an introduction by the translator and scholar Archana Venkatesan; and a "Commentary of Notes," in which Pruiksma elucidates key words and shares insights from important Tamil commentaries. Rich with indelible wordplay, learning, and heart, Pruiksma's translation transforms the barrier of language into a bridge, bringing the fullness of Tiruvalluvar's poetic intensity to a new generation.

A new translation of the classical Tamil masterpiece on ethics, power, and love. Tiruvalluvar's Tirukkural is a Tamil masterpiece of poetry and practical philosophy. Each chapter consists of 10 short verses, or kurals, on a single theme, all arranged into 3 main sections: ethics at home, wealth in the world, and love in its many complexities. Comprising 1,330 kurals in total, Tiruvalluvar's text illuminates a vision of goodness that is as worldly as it is spiritual, as rooted as it is uplifting, and as broad as it is detailed and nuanced. On par with other world classics such as the Tao Te Ching, The Kural has long been underserved by translators, who tend to sacrifice its poetry for what they see as its ideas. This new translation by Thomas Hitoshi Pruiksma draws on two decades of study under the Tamil scholar Dr. K. V. Ramakoti, as well as on the poetic tradition of W. S. Merwin, Wendell Berry, William Carlos Williams, and Denise Levertov, to do justice to the genius of the original and the subtlety of its understanding of life. Accompanying the translation is a foreword by the founder of the Institute for Sacred Activism, Andrew Harvey, an introduction by the translator and scholar Archana Venkatesan, and a "commentary of notes" in which Pruiksma elucidates key words and shares insights from important commentaries. Rich with indelible wisdom and incandescent wordplay, Pruiksma's translation transforms the barrier of language into a bridge, bringing the fullness of Tiruvalluvar's poetic intensity to a new generation.

The Safety of Edges ponders liminal times and spaces, tracing the borders between now and then, here and there, childhood and the grown poet. The edge of anything is both a limit and a possibility, an encounter either safe or risky. Pruiksma's poems seek what it is one awakens to in the half light between darkness and dawn, an emptiness that is not empty, a "saying in the silence," "a song we can't see," or whatever in movement might remain still. Pondering a world waiting to be whole, they return repeatedly to home. Theirs is a quiet voice of the hints that the past, like the things that inhabit it, emanates, of evanescences, of questioning and questing, of the mystery of ordinary moments: playing cards, drawing, opening a door, building sheds, seeing neighbors. Not only doors or walls, not only voices, all things leave traces. There is nothing "to dull the emptying darkness beyond even the darkness I could see," Pruiksma writes in a poem that appears early in his book. Yet he finds, near the end of it, "a darkness not dark, an emptiness not empty." The Safety of Edges is a work of a compassionate discreteness, a generous simplicity, in which the hours of life are not lost but found, sometimes, "all of it here in our hands."Peter Weltner, author of The Light of the Sun Become Sea and Unbecoming Time