Gambling
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Tap an underlined Tamil word to explore its sound, meaning, and use.
ciṟumai palaceytu cīraḻikkuṅ cūtiṉ / vaṟumai taruvatoṉ ṟil.
Gambling brings on many small humiliations a person never had before and destroys the standing he already had; for producing sheer destitution there is not one thing to match it.
▸Other translations · Pope (1886) & Aiyar (1916)
“Gaming brings many woes, and ruins fair renown; / Nothing to want brings men so surely down.”
“Nothing bringeth on wretchedness so surely as gambling: for it killeth a man’s good name and driveth his heart to every ignoble deed.”
Parimelazhagar’s commentary
13th century · public domainParimelazhagar’s own words come first, unaltered. The plain reading follows below.
சிறுமை பல செய்து சீர் அழிக்கும் சூதின் = தன்னை விழைந்தார்க்கு முன்னில்லாத பல துன்பங்கள் பலவற்றையும் விளைத்து உள்ளபுகழையும் கெடுக்கும் சூதுபோல்; வறுமை தருவது ஒன்று இல்= நல்குரவினைக் கொடுக்கவல்லது பிறிதொன்றில்லை.
Source: Tamil Wikisource
Parimelazhagar reads the couplet as two different times at once. To the one who has taken to gambling it produces many hardships that were not there before — his word is முன்னில்லாத, previously non-existent. The same gambling destroys உள்ளபுகழ், the renown that was already in hand. One quantity is added and another is subtracted, on a single scale. He then glosses the last word as நல்குரவு, destitution, and closes by saying that nothing else has the power to give it. The claim is not that gambling gives the most; it is that it has no equal.