The Kural text, considered to have been written in the 1st century BCE, remained unknown to the outside world for close to one and a half millennia. Authored by the ancient Tamil poet-philosopher Thiruvalluvar, it has been translated into at least 42 world languages, with about 57 different renderings in the English language alone.īeginning of translations Beschi, the earliest known translator of the Kural text Tamil Wisdom, by Edward Jewitt Robinson, 1873 Tirukkural, also known as the Kural, an ancient Indian treatise on the ethics and morality of the commoner, is one of the most widely translated non-religious works in the world. It has been suggested that List of Tirukkural translations by language be merged into this article.