THE MODERN RATIONALIST
Founder : THANTHAI PERIYAR
Periyar’s Sayings
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One who believes in a thing, not in agreement with reason and experience, out of fear, is an immature person.
- A person without avarice will never believe and follow a thing that is not in agreement with his thinking and experience.
- Even faith in god mostly arises out of greed and fear, and is not based on truth.
- Even a thief or murderer is honest if he does the deed openly.
- Morality is not a set of distinct qualities; it is doing what one says, and saying what one has done. (words and deeds should not differ)
- That people have come out to defend God shows his weakness. The more they engage themselves in defending god, the weaker will he become, besides the danger to his existence getting stronger.
- The king and the wealthy support caste (Jaathi) discrimination because the rich are afraid that if there is no inequality based on birth, there will be no inequality of wealth and income.
- The King (the ruler) is worried that if there is no high and low positions by birth or wealth, the high and low positions among the rulers and the ruled will also come to an end.
- Governance, Aristocracy and Caste superiority are three entities having one ‘spirit’ and three ‘bodies’.
- Those who have been looters become kings, those who have been cruel become aristocrats, those who have been dishonest become people of superior caste.
- Without scriptures there will be no religions. Without religions there will be no gods.
- Without god there can be no king. Without king there can be no moneyed classes. Without moneyed people there can be no persons of superior caste. So these categories are interlinked and inter-dependent.
- Mostly selfish and cunning persons have brought into existence gods, scriptures and caste.
- Whatever may be the religion, if it is a set of principles meant to guide people to lead a proper life in this world, I am prepared to consider it seriously.
- If a religion is concerned about the world ‘above’ or the world ‘ below’, or about the activities after death, I will never even look at it.
- If the hand or the leg of the people (within the fold of Chatur Varna) comes into contact with human or animal excreta, they think that washing the concerned part is enough. But if they come into contact with the body or the clothes (of the untouchables or Avarnas), they deem it necessary to take a purificatory bath! Are they really endowed with human nature?
- They allow the cow, its dung and urine to be taken into the temple to purify it. But they do not allow people (of lower castes) to enter into the same temple for worshipping, saying their entry would pollute the deity and they have to do purificatory rites. Do these people possess any sense?
- A law or religious doctrine should be in accordance with the natural tendency of the five senses and the intrinsic quality of human desire. Laws and religions that are against such natural and intrinsic aspects will amount to enslaving and imprisoning the humans.
- As the owner of a herd of cattle gives a mark to the animals to indicate his ownership, the head of a religion has arranged for a characteristic mark to be put on by the devotees to identify them as the followers of his creed or sect.
- In Hindu religion, the presiding deities of learning and wealth are women. But the principles of Hinduism deny education and property rights to women.
- People in India worship books and instruments of learning as Saraswathi, the goddess of knowledge. But only 10 per cent of the people of the country are educated.
- The workers in India consider their tools and instruments as aspects of goddess, Saraswathi. But without finding employment here, they cross the seas in large numbers and suffer in other countries.
- Only that country or society, which gives scope for freedom to love, will grow in human sympathy, civilisation understanding etc. If, on the other hand, man and woman live as husband and wife out of compulsion, it will promote only bestial and slavish behaviour.
- It is because they urge only women to be chaste, men have become Casanovas (male prostitutes).
- If women have not been compelled to remain widows permanently, the number of those indulging in prostitution would have halved.
- To be obsessed with what others say and think about you is a kind of slavishness.
- It is impossible to carry out all the reforms through the representatives elected by democratic process. A few reforms are possible only through authoritarian measures.
- A really honest person cannot earn the good name of either the government or the public.
- Men consider women as Chattels, and not as humans endowed with the same feelings and faculties they have.
- Has any Brahmin built a choultry (a free feeding house) where people of all communities are given food? Have they built a Tamil school anywhere?
- Rites and rituals, religious festivals, and festivals peculiar to particular temples (urchavams) are meant to enslave people economically.
- The world above, the state of bliss (Moksham) and hell (Naragam) are the three things cooked up to keep people fools, cowards and slaves.
- Whatever difficulties you undergo, please forget the idea of the next world, and lead a life in consonance with (the real needs and) the activities of this world.
