Thirukkural- On Virtue- Compassion-Kural-242

Add as a preferred source on Google

The search for virtue's path, cutting across all religious and moral teachings,Will lead invariably to spiritual deliverance, through compassion.

The search for virtue and moral fulfillment, whatever be the channel along which it is directed, culminates in the ultimate finding of God through human compassion. That is why an English poet recorded the following:

'I searched for my God, my God I could not see;
I looked for my soul, my soul eluded me;
I sought out my neighbour and in him found all three.

Parimelalagar refers to two means of such rational search and scrutiny – 'Alavai' (measure of assessment) and 'Porundhu Maatru' (Code of appropriateness). The net result of the search and scrutiny, through whatever religious faith, has always been the realization that God is to be reached through the compassion extended to one's fellowmen.

Christ too summarized all his teachings and the ten commandments into two – love of God and love of one's fellowmen. (Matt. 22:37-40). In the Sermon on the Mount, mercy or compassion was stressed by Christ as a cardinal virtue. The parable of the Good Samarian drives home the same point in no uncertain terms.

Shakespeare's famous passage in the Merchant of Venice is well-known and extols in poetically expressive words the quality of mercy:

'The quality of mercy is not strained;
it droppeth as the gentle rain from heaven
Upon the place beneath
It is twice blest:
It blesses him that gives and him that takes'

(Shakeshpeare Act IV Sc.1)

Perhaps Valluvar may not agree that it blesses him that takes, though he does not rule out certain circumstances under which one is forced to take. Obviously there is a difference in the nature of the two types of blessings referred to by Shakespeare. In the case of the giver it is a subjective satisfaction while in the case of the taker it is the factual blessing of rescue from certain miserable circumstances.