Chennai: The Tamil Nadu government has urged the Centre to declare Tirukkural as national book, Tamil official language and Tamil culture minister K. Pandiarajan has said.
Claiming that the Tamil Nadu government is continuing to pressurise the Centre to accord national book status to masterpiece Tirukkural authored by Tamil savant Tiruvalluvar, Mr Pandiarajan said, “Amma's (AIADMK) government is continuing to pressurise the Centre to accord national book status to Tirukkural containing 133 chapters. It has already been translated into several languages.
He was speaking to reporters here after garlanding the statue of Tiruvalluvar, along with state fisheries minister D. Jayakumar on the occasion of Tiruvalluvar Day. January 15 is celebrated as Tiruvalluvar Day as part of the celebrations of the harvest festival - Pongal.
Mr Pandiarajan said the government had also requested Unesco to accord world heritage status to Tirukkural. “On behalf of the Tamil department, we have also requested Unesco to recognise it globally by accord it world heritage status,” he added.
He said Tirukkural is a global book which teaches morals to people cutting across language, caste and religious barriers. Recently, the minister inaugurated a statue of the saint poet on the campus of the Chennai Book Fair in the city.
