We are now going into the long, long ago, thousands of years back in human history, when the nations of India, then called Bharat, were already quite advanced and well organized and the culture had, in all that really matters, reached a sophistication that even today is hard to equal. The Sanatana Dharma was already a highly sophisticated religion, and the people were well-balanced and abundant spiritually, socially, culturally, educationally and economically.

India had already enjoyed a long history. Archeology tells us that stone tools and hand axes found in the North show human presence in 500,000 bce, and in Tamil Nadu, in the South, in 470,000 bce. According to the earliest dating theories, the great Vedic era in Bharat (the Hindus' name for India) had begun after the last ice age, fully 12,000 years ago, and by 9,000 years ago the Indus-Sarasvati Valley civilization was growing grains, worshiping the Gods and building elaborate cities with sun-baked mud bricks. As the millennia passed, the Vedas evolved, temples were built, and languages emerged, all long before the Pyramids of Egypt were even started. Historians say that weaving of fabrics was widespread in India 5,000 years ago. Weaving was honored recently in Newsweek magazine as one of the hundred greatest inventions of the human mind, one which allowed the human race to migrate to all parts of the planet. The tradition says that by 1915 bce the Sangam Period began in Tamil Nadu, when sages and pandits explored the subtle arts and sciences, the philosophies and yogas. Thus, all this would have happened before the time of the Mahabharata, before Moses led the Jewish people out of Egypt, before the Trojan War in Greece and before the Roman Empire was inaugurated by Julius Caesar.

It was in the South of India, among the Tamil-speaking peoples, that a culture surpassed by few others grew through the centuries and finally produced a wonderfully insightful weaver named Tiruvalluvar. During the time the couplets in this book were scribed, two centuries before Christ, the Great Wall of China was being built and Buddhism in India was in the ascendant. King Ashoka's famed reign had just ended and the great Chola Empire of Tamil Nadu, where the weaver lived, was just beginning its thousand-year rule. As G. Ravindran Nair writes: "Tiruvalluvar lived during a period when the Chera, Chola and Pandya kings were ruling over different parts of Tamil Nadu, with their overseas contacts with countries ranging from Egypt, Greece and Rome in the West; Burma, Malaya, Singapore and China in the East; Ceylon in the South and the Himalayan kingdoms in the North."

The remarkable government of the Chola Empire stretched the length and breadth of South India, throughout Sri Lanka into Malaysia and into the rest of Asia, ruled around the year 1000 by Rajaraja Chola, after whom the empire was named. Saint Auvaiyar, the great mystical yogini and Ganesha bhaktar, lived, some say, at the very time of Tiruvalluvar. Historians have even thought they were brother and sister. Patanjali, author of the Yoga Sutras, may also have been a contemporary of the author of this book, along with Maharishi Nandinatha and his disciple, Rishi Tirumular, author of the Tirumantiram. In fact, while North India was still reeling from the failed invasions of Greece's Alexander the Great, in South India, yoga, art, music and literature were as advanced as anyplace on Earth. Tamil Nadu was then a nation, separate in its language and politics. It had its king and ministers, its navy and army, and it had reached through trade other nations in Southeast Asia. It was a proud time for the Tamil people, among the most civilized cultures anywhere.

Now that we know where we are in time, shall we now learn where we are in philosophy, religion, proficiency and protocol? It was here in this blessed land that the ancient Dravidians thrived, a Caucasian people of dark skin. It was here that the religion was the worship and realization of Siva, the Supreme One, the immanent and transcendent Lord, neither male nor female but both, timeless, formless, spaceless, yet pervading the universe. Siva's Holy Feet were worshiped in abandon in temples that stand today as monuments of a living past which is now a living present. Born of no one, beholden to no one, the Supreme Creator of all the 330 million Gods and trillions of devas, as well as embodied souls, is honored and praised today in these golden-domed, fifty-acre-and-more magnificent temples, such as Madurai and Chidambaram, built in an era whose splendor has not yet been surpassed.

In every yuga, or era, there are instinctive, intellectual and superconscious people in different ratios. These the weaver calls base men, learned men and perfect or knowing men. Instinctive people are those guided by their emotions. Typically, they are the builders and farmers, the craftsmen and servants. They live by the sweat of their brow, and their honest physical labor is the bedrock of society. They react quickly and impulsively and are mainly prompted by fear, chiefly motivated by greed. They worry, have many doubts, and mistrust even those with good intentions. The crudest among them assault with fists and beat the flesh of others, even their own dear children and beloved spouse.

The intellectuals are dependent upon the opinions of others, right or wrong. They are the treasury of accumulated knowledge, the teachers and analyzers, the businessmen, planners and administrators, the bedrock of science, government and intellectual endeavor. They look to the past for solutions to the problems in the present, and usually don't see far into the future. The crudest among them are argumentative and have a conceited opinion of themselves hardly equaled by others. They make up their own rules, not worrying overmuch about laws, community or tradition, and readily challenge any and all prevailing beliefs and systems. They lash out with words and emotions, and hurt the minds and sometimes irreparably disturb the emotions of others, even their cherished offspring and wedded spouse.

The superconscious, or intuitive, men and women depend on their intellect as a tool to record their insights and far-seeing premonitions. They depend on their abilities of reason to check their intuitions, knowing that intuition sees before thinking about what has been seen. They know that intuition is above reason but never conflicts with reason. These are the priests, the rishis, the yogis and gurus, the behind-the-scenes guides of the lawmakers and ratifiers of their plans. They are the heralds of creativity and the defenders of the faith. They hold to the laws, follow divine direction, dharma, and always listen inwardly for proper timing to advise others in the implementation of plans. These mature souls live by the divine law of ahimsa, not hurting others physically, emotionally or mentally. They are the exemplars in each yuga, millennium, century or decade and arise among and from the instinctives and the intellectuals, lifted by their sadhanas, their penance and their purity. Their example gives abundant hope for everyone in a community to rise as they did.

The story is told in India of the beautiful lotus flower that arises out of the mud. Its roots tangle below, as do instinctive people. Its stem is long and proud, reaching for the sky, as do the intellectuals. Its bud and bloom is admired by all, offered on altars, adored as sacred, as are the ones who have lifted themselves into the air and sun and are spiritually unfolded, open to the Divine Light. Yes, all men and women in every society have a chance to become perfect, for all mature and are nurtured by the muddy soil beneath the flowing waters. These 1,080 verses explain in detail just how this is to be done.

Many stories are told about the great ones, the rishis, pandits, seers, saints and sages in the religious literature of India who are the stabilizers of the community and the silent voice whispering in the ear of prominent leaders, the secret advisors of kings and their ministers.

In each yuga, millennium, century and decade, there are different ratios of the combinations of the instinctive person, the instinctive-intellectual, the superconsciously intellectual, and the superconscious, intuitive seers. In this Kali Yuga, instinctive people predominate. In the Sat Yuga, superconscious people lead by virtue of their wisdom, not necessarily by holding any official office. They see, ponder, deliberate and guide the intellectuals and are generally listened to. In each yuga, millennium or century, a nation, state, city or localized community can be dominated by one of these three kinds of groups. It is of these three that our saint speaks.

It is good for leadership to be careful that the moods and emotions of people don't drop into the lower, instinctive energies. The weaver explains this fully, for he has understood the nature of being human. Sanroor is the weaver's Tamil word for the perfect, or superconscious, far-seeing and intuitive man or woman, the one who lives a disciplined and noble life and keeps the instinctive and intellectual natures in line with dharma. In olden days, rishis guided the monarchs, who in turn guided these various strata of people, according each one their right tasks and place in the community. Yes, the weaver assures us we can have a Sat Yuga today, a golden age in our community, by understanding and then putting into action the wisdom contained between the covers of this remarkable book.