Biographical Sketches of Dekkan Poets/Teruvalluvor
TERUVALLUVOR.
This poet was another brother of Avayar, being like them exposed as soon as born, but brought up by the pariars of Mailapur. When he arrived to the age of maturity, he proceeded to Madura during the reign of Vamdasekhara, and overcame forty nine learned professors, at the court of that king in disputation. He was admitted to the Tamul college, notwithstanding his low birth. He composed a work entitled Teruvalluvar Koral, which consists of a series of stanzas of a didactic character, on the different grades and conditions of human life; this work is in great repute all over the South of India, and is reckoned one of the best compositions, extant in the high Tamil, and a translation of it into English was made, by the late Mr. F. Ellis. This poet was called Teruvalluvor, as he was reared up by Valluvar.