Thirukkural-On Virtue-Impermanence Of The World-Kural 339

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Death is like sleep, and birth Is the awakening from it.

Death and Birth are like sleep and awakening; only the intervals are longer and the circumstances more poignant. It is said that this Kural is one, which Mahatma Gandhi liked very much and used to quote now and then. Shakespeare called sleep 'the ape of death' and also described death coming at the end of life as 'our little life is rounded off in a sleep'.
(Cf. Kural 337)

The idea is also contained in the following lines of Naladiar,

"Vilithimaikkum maathiraiyandro oruvan
Azithup pirakkum pirapu"