Tirukkural-On Virtue-Charity-Kural 230

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Death is painful; but even that will be pleasant to one, Who finds himself unable to relieve the distress of others.

The idea here is obvious. It is better to die than live without being able to practise charity to relieve the distress of the poor.

Rajaji would comment on this chapter that charity or alms-giving has been extolled, and at the other end of the scale, the miser is condemned unreservedly, by Valluvar. This is against the background of those days, when legal processes for distribution of wealth were unknown. What Valluvar said then about charity would actually apply, mutatis mutandis, to the social service and social justice concepts of these days.