Deconstructing Fame and Existence: A Derridean
Reading of Kural 236
Dr. M. Velusamy,
Assistant Professor of
English,
Chikkaiah Govt. Arts and
Science College,
Erode, Tamil Nadu, India.
Abstract: The Thirukkural, a seminal Tamil ethical text
attributed to Thiruvalluvar, articulates human values in terse couplets that
invite manifold interpretations across cultural and philosophical traditions.
This article undertakes a deconstructive analysis of Kural236:“தோன்றின்புகழொடுதோன்றுக;அஃதிலார்தோன்றலின்தோன்றாமைநன்று” (“If one is to be born, let
him be born with fame; if not, non-existence is better than existence without
it”). While the verse appears to privilege fame as the essence of human
existence, a Derridean reading reveals that the hierarchy of fame and obscurity
collapses under scrutiny. Employing concepts such as différance, trace,
and supplement, this article
demonstrates how the Kural, while ostensibly prescribing an ethical maxim,
simultaneously destabilises its own claim by exposing the dependency and
fragility of fame. The discussion situates Thiruvalluvar’s aphorism within the
global discourse of deconstruction, showing how ancient Tamil wisdom
anticipates the philosophical paradoxes later articulated by Jacques Derrida.
Keywords: Kural,
Tamil Poetry, Derrida, Deconstruction, Aphorism
Introduction
The
Thirukkural, composed more than two millennia ago, is often
described as the “Tamil Veda” for its universal appeal and philosophical depth
(Zvelebil 115). Its aphoristic couplets, divided into sections on virtue (aram),
wealth (porul), and love (inbam), encapsulate perennial questions
about the human condition. Among its many themes, the valorisation of fame
recurs, linking individual existence to social recognition and memory. In Kural
236, Thiruvalluvar asserts that if one must be born, it should be with fame,
for life without fame is less desirable than non-existence.
At
first glance, the couplet seems to endorse a rigid hierarchy in which fame
equals meaningful existence and obscurity is tantamount to non-being. However,
a deconstructive approach, drawing on Jacques Derrida’s concepts of différance,
trace, and supplement, destabilises this binary. Fame and
obscurity are not discrete absolutes but interdependent constructs. As Derrida
notes in Of Grammatology, “there is no outside-text” (158), meaning that
meaning itself is never self-sufficient but always dependent on what it
excludes. In this light, Thiruvalluvar’s verse emerges not as a prescriptive
maxim but as a site of textual play that exposes the fragility of meaning
itself.
Fame as Presence:
The Metaphysics of the Kural
The
literal reading of Kural 236 elevates fame (புகழ்)
to the level of a metaphysical essence, not merely a social marker. P.S.
Sundaram renders the couplet as: “If born, be born with fame; otherwise, better
not to be born at all” (Sundaram 143). The structural emphasis of the verse
implies that biological existence, in and of itself, is insufficient; a life
without fame is imagined as a non-life, an incomplete or diminished being. In
this way, fame is transfigured into presence, truth, and essence, resembling
what Derrida critiques as “logocentrism”, the privileging of presence as the
foundation of meaning (Of Grammatology 11).
However,
Derrida complicates this assumption by insisting that presence is never
self-sufficient. Every assertion of presence is already haunted by its other,
absence. Applied here, fame cannot exist without its necessary shadow,
obscurity. The very condition of fame presupposes the possibility of being
forgotten or overlooked. Thus, the Kural, even as it seeks to affirm fame as
the essence of being, betrays an internal dependency on what it denies. Its
authority rests on the binary it seeks to transcend. In this sense, the couplet
enacts what deconstruction reveals: the instability of the very categories it
posits. Fame, while elevated to metaphysical necessity, is revealed as
inseparable from its opposite, exposing the play of presence and absence at the
heart of the text. Far from offering a stable truth, the kural gestures toward
a tension it cannot fully resolve.
Différance and the
Deferral of Fame
Derrida’s
notion of différance unites the ideas of both difference
and deferral, pointing to the fact that meaning is never fixed in one place but
is constantly shifting, always postponed in an endless play of signs (Margins
of Philosophy 8). When this idea is read into Kural 236, fame ceases to appear
as a stable metaphysical essence; instead, it emerges as a deferred ideal,
always sought but never fully grasped.
•
Fame achieved today may quickly dissolve into disgrace tomorrow, since the
social networks and cultural values
that sustain it are in constant motion.
• What qualifies as “fame” in
one age or community may lose its significance in another, showing its dependence on historical and
cultural contingencies rather than on any permanent
truth.
Thus,
when Thiruvalluvar enjoins that one must be “born with fame,” the prescription
itself is bound to an unstable category whose definition cannot remain
constant. The ideal becomes less a fixed state of being and more a horizon that
continually recedes. As A.K. Ramanujan has noted, the very brevity of the Kural
enables multiple and layered readings that resist closure and finality
(Ramanujan 21). The meaning of fame, then, is not a singular presence but a
fluid signifier that shifts across time, place, and interpretation. Much like
Derrida’s play of the signifier, it slides across contexts, never settling into
one definitive form. In this way, the Kural not only elevates fame but also
exposes its own susceptibility to the instability of meaning.
The Supplement:
Fame as an Add-On to Life
Derrida’s
concept of the supplement provides a productive lens to
understand the paradox embedded in Kural 236. The supplement, in Derrida’s
formulation, is not simply an external addition but something that
simultaneously exposes an absence within the original. As he writes, “the
supplement is exterior, outside of the positivity to which it is super-added,
but interior also, since it marks the inside by the sign of its deficiency” (Of Grammatology 145). What appears to enrich or
complete a thing, in fact, discloses that the thing was never whole in the
first place.
In this light, fame emerges as the
supplement to life in Kural 236. Life, as the verse portrays it, is not
sufficient by itself; it requires the presence of fame to count as meaningful
or complete. Yet, in demanding this supplement, the verse inadvertently exposes
life’s own incompleteness. Fame is not merely a desirable addition but the very
sign of life’s lack. Without it, existence is portrayed as inferior, even worse
than non-existence.
Thus,
what seems to glorify human life is, in fact, destabilising it. The Kural
insists on fame as the condition for meaningful being, but by doing so, it
reveals that life cannot stand secure on its own ground. Fame, which appears to
affirm existence, functions instead as the marker of its deficiency. Far from
elevating life, the verse undermines its essence, suggesting that an
inescapable lack haunts existence.
The Play of
Meaning: Irony and Ambivalence
Through
a deconstructive lens, Kural 236 appears less as a straightforward moral
directive and more as a site of irony and tension. On the surface, the couplet
exhorts individuals to regard fame as the supreme value, elevating it above
mere existence. Yet, beneath this assertion lies a destabilising awareness: the
impossibility of grounding fame as a stable, universal concept. What seems like
certainty is already marked by contradiction.
This
ambiguity resonates with Derrida’s notion of the “play of signification,” where
meaning never resides in a fixed center but emerges through an endless chain of
differences. In this sense, the Kural does not deliver a single moral truth but
participates in the ceaseless movement of signs. By establishing a hierarchy,
fame is elevated above obscurity; the verse attempts to secure meaning.
However, this very hierarchy reveals its dependency on what it excludes,
showing that fame has no significance without non-fame. The binary collapses
into interdependence. Homi K. Bhabha’s observation in a different context
sharpens this reading: “the recognition of the other is never total but split
by its very act of enunciation” (The Location of Culture 37). Similarly, the recognition of fame in Thiruvalluvar’s verse is
split by the trace of its absence. The Kural thus dramatises not a stable ethic
but a paradox, where the very condition of fame is bound to what it denies.
Rather than offering closure, it exposes the perpetual instability at the heart
of value itself.
Derrida and
Thiruvalluvar: A Cross-Cultural Encounter
The
juxtaposition of Derrida and Thiruvalluvar may initially appear anachronistic,
yet it illuminates how ancient Tamil poetics had already gestured toward
questions that deconstruction would later theorise. Both figures resist the
temptation of closure and lay bare the fragility of binary oppositions that
claim to hold universal authority. Rather than presenting fixed truths, their
texts invite a recognition of instability and contradiction as integral to
meaning itself.
•
Thiruvalluvar elevates fame as the highest ideal, yet simultaneously
destabilises it by suggesting that
life without fame is worse than non-existence. In doing so, he acknowledges the troubling possibility that
the opposite of his valorised category carries its
own form of value.
• Derrida, in his turn,
insists that meaning can never achieve final presence, since it is always generated through the shifting
play of differences and deferrals.
Placed side by side, the Kural and
Derrida’s theory expose how ethical maxims are never transparent universals but
textual constructions marked by their own contradictions. What appears to be a
moral injunction is already fissured by the instability of its terms. This
recognition transforms the Kural from a fixed moral law into an open field of
interpretation. As Zvelebil observes, “The greatness of the Kural lies not in
dogma but in its openness to multiple readings” (132). Such openness is not a
weakness but a sign of enduring vitality, enabling the text to resonate across
times, cultures, and theoretical frameworks.
Conclusion
Kural
236 of The Thirukkural, often celebrated for its valorisation of fame,
reveals under deconstruction the instability of its central claim. Fame,
presented as the essence of existence, is shown to depend on obscurity, to
defer its own meaning, and to supplement life only by revealing its lack. In
Derrida’s terms, the Kural exemplifies différance, trace, and supplement,
undoing its metaphysical hierarchy from within.
Thus,
what appears as a prescriptive moral maxim becomes a site of philosophical
play. The deconstructive reading demonstrates that The Thirukkural is
not merely an ancient ethical text but also a rich terrain for contemporary
critical theory. In bringing Thiruvalluvar into dialogue with Derrida, we
glimpse how classical Tamil thought resonates with, and even anticipates, the
paradoxes of modern philosophy.
Works
Cited
Bhabha, Homi K. The Location of Culture.
Routledge, 1994.
Derrida, Jacques. Margins of Philosophy.
Translated by Alan Bass, University of Chicago Press, 1982.
---. Of Grammatology. Translated by Gayatri
Chakravorty Spivak, Johns Hopkins UP, 1997.
---. Positions. Translated by Alan Bass, U
of Chicago P, 1981.
Narayanan, Vasudha. Ethics in the Tamil Classics.
Oxford UP, 2002.
Ramanujan, A.K. Poems of Love and War: From the
Eight Anthologies and the Ten Long Poems of Classical Tamil. Columbia UP,
1985.
Sundaram, P.S. Thirukkural: A New English
Version. Penguin Books, 1990.
Zvelebil, Kamil. The Smile of Murugan: On Tamil
Literature of South India. Brill, 1973.