# LXXXIV: Folly explained — The Kural

> Chapter companion for The Kural by Thiruvalluvar.

## What happens

This chapter defines folly as the rejection of what is profitable and the embrace of what is harmful, emphasizing the fool's neglect of duty, rude speech, lack of shame, and inability to cherish goodness. It warns that even a learned man who remains a slave to his passions is the greatest fool, and that the fool sows misery for future births, spoils important enterprises, and brings disgrace to his kindred.

## Themes in this chapter

### The Vanity of Worldly Life

Folly is portrayed as a self-destructive attachment to harmful conduct, leading to misery across incarnations.

### Social Harmony and Ethics

The fool disrupts social order through neglect of duty, rude speech, and disgrace in assemblies of worthy people.

## Character check-ins

### the Kural

The text of the Kural itself delivers the teachings on folly.

## Key lines

> Dost thou want to know what folly is? It is the throwing away of that which is profitable and the holding fast to that which is hurtful.

Folly is knowingly discarding what benefits you while clinging to what harms you.

_This opening couplet defines folly in stark, practical terms._

> There is a man that is learned and subtle and a teacher of others, and yet continueth to be the slave of his passions himself: there is no greater fool than he.

A learned person who teaches others but cannot control his own desires is the worst kind of fool.

_Highlights the hypocrisy of intellectual knowledge without self-mastery._

> The fool hath the gift of sowing in one birth the seeds of misery for all his future incarnations.

In a single lifetime, the fool plants the causes of suffering that will haunt him across many rebirths.

_Connects folly to karmic consequences across multiple lives._

> If the fool should come by a great fortune it is strangers that will feast and his kindred will only starve.

When a fool acquires wealth, outsiders enjoy it while his own family goes hungry.

_Illustrates the fool's failure to care for his own kin._

> Even as is the placing of an unwashed foot on the couch, even so is the entrance of the fool in an assembly of men of worth.

A fool entering a gathering of wise people is as jarring and inappropriate as putting a dirty foot on a clean bed.

_Emphasizes the fool's lack of refinement and social grace._

## Links

- HTML: https://www.betterreads.online/discover/the_kural_se/chapters/lxxxiv-folly
- Book: https://www.betterreads.online/discover/the_kural_se
- All chapters: https://www.betterreads.online/discover/the_kural_se/chapters