The Kural · Chapter
CVIII: The Degraded Life explained
This chapter contrasts the behavior of the degraded or base with the worthy, emphasizing their lack of conscience, fear-driven motives, and tendency to betray secrets and envy others.
What happens
This chapter contrasts the behavior of the degraded or base with the worthy, emphasizing their lack of conscience, fear-driven motives, and tendency to betray secrets and envy others. It suggests that only force can compel them to give, and that in misfortune they will sell themselves.
Themes in this chapter
Social Harmony and Ethics
The chapter contrasts the behavior of the degraded with the worthy, emphasizing the importance of moral character for social order.
The Vanity of Worldly Life
The degraded are depicted as lacking conscience and being driven by base appetites, highlighting the emptiness of a life without virtue.
Characters to notice
- the Kural
The text of the Kural itself is the source of the aphorisms describing the degraded life.
Key passages
“Happier than men of conscience are these despicable ones! For they never have any pangs of the mind to feel.”
The degraded are happier than the virtuous because they feel no guilt or remorse.
This paradox underscores the theme that conscience brings suffering, but the degraded lack moral awareness.
“Like unto a tomtom are the base ones: for they cannot rest without giving out to others the secrets that are entrusted to them.”
Base people are like drums that cannot help but broadcast whatever is confided to them.
This simile illustrates the untrustworthiness of the degraded.
“The worthy can be commanded by a simple word: but, like the sugarcane, the low can be made to give only by a sound thrashing.”
Good people respond to a gentle request, but the base yield only to force, like sugarcane that must be crushed to yield its juice.
This contrast emphasizes the necessity of harsh treatment for the degraded.