Tirukkural-On Virtue-On Self Restraint-Kural 126

Like a tortoise, if one is able to restrain the five senses,It will give lasting strength through all his seven births.

Control of the five senses, tortoise-fashion, will strengthen a man in his sojourn through the series of births and lead him to ultimate release or salvation. The poet's comparison of self-control by withdrawing the five senses against tempting pleasures, to the tortoise drawing into its shell the head and limbs (five in all) when it senses danger, is an extremely apt and picturesque one. While explaining the yoga of withdrawal of the senses Lord Krishna uses the same imagery in the Gita as below;

'When also, like the tortoise drawing its limbs, he can completely withdraw the senses from their objects, then his wisdom becomes steady'.

(Gita 2, 58)

The implication in this Kural is that the evils, for which a man is responsible in one birth, will follow him through his chain of other births, which is the theory of Karma, again.

The comparison of the tortoise to the controlling of the five senses has been used also in jeevaka Chinthamani and Kambaramayanam, in later years.