The Thirukkural is a Tamil literary masterpiece with a collection of 1,330 couplets on ethics, governance, and relationships by the poet Thiruvalluvar. Spending 57 hours over several months, Tamilarasan Shanmuganandam, 29, wrote the entire Thirukkural on a sheet of paper, leaving gaps to form the outline of the sage’s portrait. The 26cm-by-38.1cm work was created as a tribute to the 90th anniversary of Tamil Murasu. He added ‘Tamil Murasu, Voice of the Community, towards the century’ 200 times at the bottom of the picture after the couplets. Including the 42,194 letters of Thirukkural, the artwork contained more than 47,000 handwritten Tamil letters and more than 10,000 words, all written smaller than 1mm in height. The record was presented in LISHA office on 23 Dec 2025. Tamilarasan held a previous record in micro-writing.
