Chapter 12 of Weaver's Wisdom: Ancient Precepts for a Perfect Life (thirukkurrall) deals with the virtue of Impartiality. This video gives an overview of this chapter and the praaphrase of the 10 couplets of this chapter.
Impartiality is a desirable quality for people of all walks of life, and particularly so for
one aspiring to become a successful leader. It is highly desirable to maintain impartiality
in various daily activities such as resolving differences of opinions, accumulating wealth,
advising, and giving judgement on selecting among contesting claims.
There should be no preferential treatment between a strong person and a weak person
or between friend and foe or rich and poor or high echelon and lower rungs of society;
impartiality needs to be maintained irrespective of these differences between contending parties.
Even the fact that we owe gratitude to one party should not sway us away from impartiality.
Impartiality could include non-alignment, justice, moderation and many such terms. When
caught between two fighting factions or individuals, staying away without involving also could be claimed as being impartial. What KuRaL says as impartiality is the underlying great
human quality of maintaining the proper stance. This is a quality needed in all walks of life
to be maintained by all. VaLLuvar refers to this as a qualification.
The story of Yuthishtira opting for the return to life of Nakula when faced with the choice
for the return of one of his 4 brothers is a good example to illustrate equity or impartiality.
Simple paraphrase of the 10 couplets (Impartiality):
111. Justice may be called good when it acts impartially toward enemies, strangers and
friends.
112. The wealth of those who possess justice will not perish, but will bring happiness
also to their posterity.
113. Forsake in the very moment (of acquisition) that gain which was acquired with unfair means, even if it should bring advantage of them after their time.
115. Ups and downs in life are inevitable; noble scholars preserve evenness of mind in
either case.
116. When the heart falters to think unfairly, be alerted that you are on course for ruination.
117. The world will not think ill of one who was just in one’s dealings but has stumbled
into poverty
118. Like a weighing scale that is balanced and sways correctly, the grace of noble scholars
lies in dispassionate assessment.
119. Freedom from obliquity of speech is rectitude, if there be (corresponding) freedom from bias of mind. Speech uttered without bias is integrity, if no unspoken bias lurks in the heart.
120. Responsible business is when a business-person, caringly, deploys other people’s money as one’s own.
No comments:
Post a Comment