Tirukkural-On Virtue- On Love Or Affection-Kural 71

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Anbirkum undo adaikkuntaal arrvalar
Punkaneer pusal tharum.

Affection cannot be confined by shutters; Uncontrollable tears will roll down spontaneously, When one sees the sufferings and sorrows of the loved ones.

However much the one who loves may try, it is not possible for him to hide affection towards the loved ones, particularly when they are in some kind of trouble; because, seeing them suffer, he will himself suffer with them and shed uncontrollable tears of sorrow.

This and three other Kurals of this chapter deal with the love primarily between members of a family, but as Valluvar himself has said in a later Kural (757) it is difficult to separate this Anbu (Love) from 'Arul' (Compassion) – for compassion is the off-spring of love, 'arulennum anbeen kulavi'. In fact Kural No.72 deals with an aspect of love that is all pervading and therefore becomes really compassion, and that Kural itself, therefore, would have been more appropriate in chapter 25, on 'Arul'- Compassion, though the word used in the said Kural is only 'Anbu', love.

The appropriateness of this chapter after the chapters on family life, wife and children, is obvious. Only the love, with which a householder reaches out of his own self to his near and dear ones, can in due course go farther afield and cover all living creatures. This idea naturally leads us on to the next Kural.