Tirukural

CHAPTER 9

Hospitality

81

The whole purpose of earning wealth and maintaining a home is to provide hospitality to guests.§

82

When a guest is in the home, it is improper to hoard one’s meal, even if it happens to be the nectar of immortality.§

83

If a man cares daily for those who come to him, his life will never suffer the grievous ruin of poverty.§

84

Wealth’s Goddess dwells in the hospitable home of those who host guests with a smiling face.§

85

If a man eats only after attending to guests’ needs, what further sowing will his fertile fields require?§

86

The host who, caring for guests, watches hopefully for more, will himself be a welcomed guest of those whose home is Heaven.§

87

Charity’s merit cannot be measured by gifts given. It is measured by measuring the receiver’s merits.§

88

Those who never sacrifice to care for guests will later lament: “We hoarded wealth, estranged ourselves, now none will care for us.”§

89

The poverty of poverties is having plenty yet shunning guests. Such senselessness is only found in senseless fools.§

90

The delicate anicham flower withers when merely smelled, but an unwelcome look is enough to wither a guest’s heart.§