Unveiling a statue of poet Thiruvalluvar at Delhi Tamil Education Association (DTEA) Senior Secondary School at the Lodhi Estate on Thursday, Tamil Nadu Governor R.N. Ravi said the British mandated East India Company to evangelise India and missionaries like G.U. Pope, who first translated the epic poem of Thiruvalluvar, the Thirukkural, into English, presented a “de-spiritualised” version of it.
“The translation was done with colonial objective to trivialise the spiritual wisdom of India,” Mr. Ravi said.
He claimed that the British attempted to destroy India’s great spirituality by distorting Indian history and culture and to colonise the people’s mind. He asked the youths and the scholars to shun the colonial interpretation of ancient Tamil texts and have soulful reading of these scriptures and experience their true essence.
The Governor said The Thirukkural is not just a code of ethics and morality but an epic book holding the wisdom of eternal spirituality. He said the term, ‘Aadhi Bhagavan’, mentioned in the first couplet, is found in all the Indian languages. “The concept of ‘Aadhi Bhagavan’ is in the Rig Veda also. It is at the core of Indian spirituality. It is far from ‘Primal Deity’ as translated by colonial apologists,” Mr. Ravi said.
