Tirukural/Chapter 12

by Tiruvalluvar

Kural-111
If justice, failing not, its quality maintain,
Giving to each his due, -'tis man's one highest gain.
That equity which consists in acting with equal regard to each of (the three) divisions of men [enemies, strangers and friends] is a pre-eminent virtue.

Kural-112
The just man's wealth unwasting shall endure,
And to his race a lasting joy ensure.
The wealth of the man of rectitude will not perish, but will bring happiness also to his posterity.

Kural-113
Though only good it seem to give, yet gain
By wrong acquired, not e'en one day retain!
Forsake in the very moment (of acquisition) that gain which, though it should bring advantage, is without equity.

Kural-114
Who just or unjust lived shall soon appear:
By each one's offspring shall the truth be clear.
The worthy and unworthy may be known by the existence or otherwise of good offsprings.

Kural-115
The gain and loss in life are not mere accident;
Just mind inflexible is sages' ornament.
Loss and gain come not without cause; it is the ornament of the wise to preserve evenness of mind (under both).

Kural-116
If, right deserting, heart to evil turn,
Let man impending ruin's sign discern!
Let him whose mind departing from equity commits sin well consider thus within himself, "I shall perish."

Kural-117
The man who justly lives, tenacious of the right,
In low estate is never low to wise man's sight.
The great will not regard as poverty the low estate of that man who dwells in the virtue of equity.

Kural-118
To stand, like balance-rod that level hangs and rightly weighs,
With calm unbiassed equity of soul, is sages' praise.
To incline to neither side, but to rest impartial as the even-fixed scale is the ornament of the wise.

Kural-119
Inflexibility in word is righteousness,
If men inflexibility of soul possess.
Freedom from obliquity of speech is rectitude, if there be (corresponding) freedom from bias of mind.

Kural-120
As thriving trader is the trader known,
Who guards another's interests as his own.
The true merchandize of merchants is to guard and do by the things of others as they do by their own.