Tamil is an immensely vast storehouse of proverbs. With its history dating to the early centuries of the Christian era, it has gathered in the course of its long evolution an enormous number of these wise sayings which constitute a form of folklore of infinite beauty, variety and elegance. Apart from being a rich source of the wisdom of the bygone ages, these 'edged tools of speech' have always been used as stylistic adornments in rhetorical practice. The present ...