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Thirukkural in Sinhalese |
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In Sinhalese, there are at least two translations, one by Govokgada Misihamy in 1961 and the other by Charles De Silva published by the Sri Lanka Sahitya Mandalaya in 1964. Thanks to Deepani Jayantha with whose help I could get hold of a copy of Misihamy's translation "Thiruvalluvar's Kural". Misigamy does not consider his rendering a translation but instead an 'adaptation' of the Tamil classic. It is true that no translation of any classic into a foreign language can do justice to the original and perhaps this is the reason why Misihamy presented his work as an adaptation of Tirukkural. He was ably assisted by Dr. S. Thambaiah, probably a Tamilian who was well versed with the source language Tamil. Published by Anula Publishers, Colombo in the year 1961, this work is no longer available in print.
Since Tamil is an official language of Sri Lanka, there is every possibility of more translations been published in Sinhala language, especially when we know that languages like Oriya and Bengali have seen four to five translations by different authors. As of now, I am aware of only two translations, both published before the 70s. |
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N.V.K. Ashraf March, 2008 |
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Click here to view the complete translation of Kural in Sinhalese |
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Click here for an introduction to Tirukkural in Sinhalese
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