Chapter 90 Avoiding offence to the great Kural: 896

When I was poring through the unique chapter
titled “Avoiding offence to the Great” in Thirukural,

I was left wondering as to whether a namesake of Periyar
lived in this world some thousand or two thousand years ago.
Or was it a prophecy of things to follow.

Either a thousand or two thousand years before or
a thousand or two thousand years after this era,

any number of years before or after,
our Periyar would live like a colossus.

Whenever humanity is afflicted with madness,
an upright reformer is needed.

When self respect, honour were buried deep
by enigmatic rites of sastra of the society
Periyar was required to retrieve them.

He thundered followed by a storm,
Comrade, flout your self-respect.

That storm uprooted the all-pervading
Vedic structure of the society
and facilitated sprouting of Rational Movement.

Thirukural categorically states that
One may even survive burns but it is a day dream
to think that one can thrive
after offending the Greatmen.

If this truth is used to prove that
Periyar was capable of making miracles happen
or he is incarnation of God,

then I would say that all the efforts undertaken by him
to nourish Rationalism would go futile.

Here comes an incident from the life of Periyar
which can be considered as a case study.

The conventions of Sastra made it a taboo
for untouchables to even look towards
a particular street of Vaikom in Thiruvananthapuram.

The Government of that era wasted no time
in passing orders to ban the entry of those people
in that street.

When this matter came to the notice of Periyar
he took up cudgels and launched a non-violent war

He himself spearheaded the protest movement
against the oppressive strategy of the government.

With a false hope that he could be cowed down through suppression,
the government retaliated by putting him in the prison

With the intention of burying a Lion in the grave.

The advisors anxiously stated that if mega yaga succeeds
Periyar’s life span would significantly reduce and he would ultimately die.

Though they intended something, the result was radically different.
Though the Mega yaga was intended to liquidate somebody,
The King who was instrumental in launching the yaga expired.

It all happened by chance and Periyar himself
never boasted that it was his handiwork.

Periyar is not born time and again,
the ideology of Rationalism is the child left behind by him.

It does not mean that if one were to wrong the great,
in the name of periyar, if somebody acts contradictorily
by worshipping the charge sheet in a temple,
and invoke the principle of periyar by standing on the top of monumental tower of temple.

Periyar’s ideology would burn the evil to ashes.
and evil-doers would be punished appropriately.

(One can even survive the burns, But those who betray cerebral great men would not be spared of dire consequences.)