The Kural · Chapter
XCIII: Abstaining from Drink explained
This chapter condemns the vice of drunkenness, emphasizing that it leads to loss of glory, shame, and contempt from others.
What happens
This chapter condemns the vice of drunkenness, emphasizing that it leads to loss of glory, shame, and contempt from others. It argues that drinkers are insensible and akin to the dead, and that the drunkard cannot hide his vice or pretend ignorance of it.
Themes in this chapter
Social Harmony and Ethics
Drunkenness is portrayed as a vice that disrupts social esteem and family bonds, undermining ethical conduct.
The Vanity of Worldly Life
The chapter highlights the futility of drinking, which leads to insensibility and loss of self, akin to death.
Characters to notice
- the Kural
The chapter is a set of verses from the Kural, teaching the evils of drink.
Key passages
“Behold the men who are addicted to drink: they will never be feared by their enemies, and even the glory they have acquired they will lose.”
Those who drink lose their reputation and are not respected by foes.
Opening verse on the social and personal costs of drunkenness.
“The sight of the man who is intoxicated is an abomination even unto his own mother: what must it be then to the worthy?”
A drunkard disgusts even his mother, let alone virtuous people.
Emphasizes the universal shame of intoxication.
“Behold the men who drink the poison called toddy day after day: they are as men that are asleep, neither do they differ from dead men.”
Daily drinkers are like the sleeping or the dead, lacking awareness.
Compares drunkenness to a living death.