Indian
Thiruvalluvar composed the Tirukkural in Tamil somewhere between the third century BCE and the fifth century CE; the date is contested and so is nearly everything else about him. Tradition places him in Mylapore, in what is now Chennai, and describes him as a weaver. Hindus, Jains, Buddhists, and Christians have all claimed him, largely because the Tirukkural mentions no god by name, prescribes no ritual, and belongs to no sect. Its 1,330 couplets, arranged in three books on virtue, wealth, and love, are written in kural venba, a two-line metre of seven words that permits no waste. The text is the most translated work in Tamil and the most quoted; Tamil political speech, film dialogue, and everyday argument all run on it. A statue of him stands at Kanyakumari, at the southern tip of India, one hundred and thirty-three feet high, one for each chapter.