Chapter 94: Gambling

Verse 940
Under a tree two men have been gambling for hours. The winner, with his hands up, is celebrating and mocking the loser. The loser holds his head in disbelief that he has lost so much. However, he brings a bangle out of a treasure chest and offers to risk it along with his home and vehicles on the next roll of the dice.

TAKA Presents the Tirukural

You can access the entire text, in Tamil and English here:
Weaver’s Wisdom

Verse 931

Do not take to gambling, even if you can win,
for your wins will be like the baited hooks that fish swallow.

Verse 932

To win once, a gambler loses a hundred times.
What a way to procure happiness and prosperity!

Verse 933

Incessantly calling bets on rolling dice causes
a man’s rich reserves and potential revenues to run elsewhere.

Verse 934

Gambling brings on many miseries and erodes one’s good name.
Nothing else ends in such wretched poverty.

Verse 935

Desiring to win everything, those who love the dice,
the gambling hall and their lucky hand lose it all.

Verse 936

Gambling is Misfortune’s other name. Fools ensnared by her
will suffer an empty stomach and distressing sorrows.

Verse 937

Spending time in the gambling hall squanders
ancestral wealth and wastes personal worth.

Verse 938

Gambling will consume a man’s wealth and corrupt his honesty.
It will curtail his benevolence and increase his torment.

Verse 939

Those who take to gambling’s fickle gain forfeit these five:
raiments, riches, rations, renown and erudition.

Verse 940

The gambler’s passion increases with the losses incurred.
Even so does the soul’s craving for life grow with the griefs suffered.