Imagine this little Tamil gem charting a global odyssey: the Tirukkural’s 1,330 couplets have been rendered into over forty tongues, from classical Latin to cutting-edge Ukrainian. English readers owe a debt to Francis Whyte Ellis, who first spilled the beans on 108 verses in 1812, and to William Henry Drew and G. U. Pope, whose 19th-century partnership produced the definitive English edition. A more literal, word-by-word English version arrived in the 1970s courtesy of P. S. Sundaram.

German audiences got their own window via Karl Graul’s 1856 “Thirukkural oder das Herz vollkommener Tugend.” Latin enthusiasts can thank the Jesuit scholar Constantius Joseph Beschi for weaving Valluvar’s wisdom into their favorite classical language. On the subcontinent, Ramachandra Shukla’s mid-20th-century Hindi translation and Gangadas Sen’s Bengali version opened doors for millions more.

Regional Indian languages boast equally passionate champions. D. V. Sastri brought the couplets into Telugu life in the late 19th century, while K. N. Ganesh’s modern Malayalam edition still flies off shelves in Kerala. Kannada readers cherish translations by S. Ramaswamy, and Odia scholars enlisted Raghunath Rout to blend Thiruvalluvar’s ethics with their own literary heritage.

Beyond India and Europe, there’s a fresh wave of translators. José Luis Vega’s 2008 Spanish edition proved a smash hit in Barcelona’s book fairs. Beata Olecki’s 2017 Polish translation drew praise at the Warsaw Book Fair. A Ukrainian version by Igor Leontiev popped up in 2023, and Chinese readers can explore the 1990 rendering by Shunfu Chao. Even Bulgarian (Nikola Kirov) and Urdu (Abdul Rauf) renditions have carved out devoted followings.

Every new language feels like a fresh spin on an age-old melody. As global readers continue to groove to its universal beat, Tirukkural proves time and again that profound wisdom needs no passport.