Tirukkural, Quran and Old Testament: The Relationship between Greek Hippolytus, Hebrew Joseph, Arabic Yūsuf and Buddha with Chastity, Orphic and Sobriety

Abstract

Hippolytus is a tale seen in ancient Greek literature. It deals primarily with the sexual desire of a stepmother towards her stepson. Euripides also wrote a play on this theme with the similar name. In this he mentioned familiarity in which the poet also can sing. Ancient Greek Historian Pausanias mentioned that the alien who has learnt Greek, knows about this tale. So it is a need to search, how far this tale could travel. Ancient Greeks traded with Tamil Nadu, India. The same tale is also seen in Indian Buddhist text, with other proper names, that mentioned the same is related with the former birth of Buddha. A similar story of Hippolytus is also found in the Hebrew Old Testament and the Arabic Qur'an. These also need comparison. So this study considered the religious value of this Greek tale ‘Hippolytus’. The chastity and vegetarianism of Hippolytus are mentioned as the best morals in an ancient book called Tirukkuṟaḷ, which is on par with Buddhist philosophy. This paper outcomes the concept of chastity and vegetarianism, mingled in the tale, which is the philosopy of Buddhism and how the Greek philosophy admired and induced the Indians to worship the Grecian Deities. Keywords: Tirukkuṟaḷ, Hippolytus, Tamil Nadu, Buddhism, Chastity, Quran, Old Testament