திருக்குறளில் மருத்துவ மேலாண்மை “மருந்து” அதிகாரத்தை (குறள் 941–950) முன்வைத்த ஒரு பகுப்பாய்வு

Medical Management in the Tirukkural: An Analytical Study of the Chapter on Medicine (Kurals 941–950)

Abstract

Background: The Tirukkural, the classical Tamil treatise on ethics, polity and love, devotes a full chapter to medicine (Chapter 95, Marunthu; Kurals 941–950) within its section on polity (Porutpal). In ten couplets it addresses health, diet, disease prevention, diagnosis and treatment. Objective: This study examines the medical thought of the chapter through the lens of medical management and compares it with present-day concepts of health-care management. Methods: The ten couplets are treated as primary data and read closely alongside the classical commentary of Parimelazhagar and the modern commentaries of Mu. Varadarasanar and Ku. Mohanarasu. A qualitative design combining close reading, thematic classification and comparative interpretation is used, with care taken not to read modern science back into the text. Results: Seven of the ten couplets (941–947) concern the prevention of disease through moderation in food and activity, attention to digestion and hunger, and the avoidance of unsuitable food; three (948–950) concern clinical practice. Kural 948 sets out a four-step clinical sequence: identify the disease, trace its cause, find the means of relief, and act appropriately. Kural 949 asks the learned physician to weigh the patient’s condition, the extent of the illness and the time, a patient-centred principle. Kural 950 names four components of medicine (patient, physician, medicine and attendant), a scheme that closely parallels the “four pillars” of treatment in the Caraka Samhita and the logic of team-based care. Conclusion: The chapter can be summarised as a three-stage management model: preventing disease, diagnosing it systematically, and treating the individual patient appropriately. Its value today lies not as a substitute for modern medicine but as an ethical and humanistic foundation for patient-centred care.