A recent $100,000 gift to Rice from Malar Selvan and his family will establish the Thirukkural Fund for Philosophy in the School of Humanities. The Thirukkural Fund is named after the Tamil philosophical text, often referred to as The Kural, the first secular body of work on life and ethics, to emerge from India. The Thirukkural is made up of 1,330 short couplets divided into three books written sometime between the 5th century BCE and 500 CE.
This fund, Malar explains, will enrich the pursuit of fundamental questions about existence, ethics, reason and more: “‘Birth is alike to all; distinction in their deeds creates diversity,’ says Thirukkural. All of the 133 themes presented in Thirukkural attempt to address a simple question: What is a good life?” Malar said. “I hope this Thirukkural endowment enriches the programs at Rice Philosophy.”
Robert Howell, the Yasser El-Sayed Professor and Department of Philosophy Chair, says that this fund will play a pivotal role in expanding the department’s offerings.
https://giving.rice.edu/new-fund-expand-department-philosophys-scope
https://news.rice.edu/news/2023/rice-lands-no-17-latest-us-news-rankings