The texts behind them
The Hindu and Tamil canon at the centre, and beside it the texts the masters themselves reached for. Original script, transliteration, a plain English rendering, and a note on who translated what.
Eighteen chapters on how to act when every action has consequences you cannot control.
उपनिषद्The UpanishadsHindu · Sanskrit · c. 800–200 BCEThe oldest sustained attempt to answer one question: what is actually here, underneath the world and underneath you?
திருக்குறள்ThirukkuralTamil · Thiruvalluvar · c. 1st–5th century CE1,330 couplets on virtue, wealth and love, so compressed that Tamils have argued about them for fifteen centuries.
தேவாரம் · திருவாசகம் · திவ்யப் பிரபந்தம்Tamil Bhakti — Thevaram, Thiruvasagam, Divya PrabandhamTamil · Shaiva and Vaishnava saints · 6th–9th century CEThe Nayanmars and Alvars sang God in Tamil a thousand years before anyone else sang in the vernacular, and the whole bhakti movement of India began here.
योगसूत्राणिYoga Sutras of PatanjaliHindu · Sanskrit · c. 350–450 CE195 aphorisms describing, in the register of a technical manual, what happens when you systematically quiet the mind.
धम्मपदDhammapadaBuddhist · Pali · c. 3rd century BCE423 verses of the Buddha's teaching, arranged by theme, making almost no metaphysical demands.
ऋग्वेदःThe VedasHindu · Vedic Sanskrit · c. 1500–1200 BCEThe oldest surviving literature in any Indo-European language, preserved by sound alone for a thousand years before it was written.
अष्टावक्रगीता · विवेकचूडामणिःAshtavakra Gita & VivekachudamaniHindu · Advaita Vedanta · SanskritTwo faces of non-dualism: one says there is nothing to do, the other lays out exactly what to do.
रामायणम् · महाभारतम्Ramayana & MahabharataHindu · Sanskrit epicsTwo epics that refuse to make dharma simple: every character, including the gods, does something indefensible.
道德經Tao Te ChingChinese · Taoist · c. 4th century BCEEighty-one short chapters on acting without struggling—the way water gets where it is going by going down.
மலைப்பிரசங்கம் · தோமாவின் நற்செய்திThe Sermon on the Mount & the Gospel of ThomasChristian · Greek and Coptic · 1st–2nd century CEThe most concentrated statement of Jesus's ethics, and the lost gospel in which the kingdom is already spread out on the earth.
مثنوی معنویRumi and the SufisIslamic · Persian · 13th centuryThe reed torn from the reed-bed, crying all night because it remembers where it came from.
Τὰ εἰς ἑαυτόνMarcus Aurelius, MeditationsRoman · Stoic · Greek · c. 170 CEThe private notebook of an emperor, written for nobody, on campaign, to steady himself.