01Akam and puram

The poets sorted all of life into two. Akam, the inner, is love, and no lover in an akam poem is ever named; the poem belongs to every lover. Puram, the outer, is everything else: war, kings, gifts, grief, death, the generosity of patrons and the pride of bards. The Eight Anthologies, Ettuthokai, and the Ten Idylls, Pattupattu, hold about 2,381 poems by 473 named poets, some of them known only by a striking phrase from their one surviving poem. Every poem is tagged with its tinai and turai, its landscape and situation, so that a reader knows at once who is speaking, to whom and why.

02Five landscapes, five gods

Each mood of love belongs to a landscape, with its own flower, season, hour, birds, people and deity, as the Tolkappiyam lays out. Kurinji, the hills, is lovers meeting at midnight, and its god is Seyon, Murugan. Mullai, the forest and pasture, is patient waiting in the rains at evening, and its god is Mayon, Tirumal. Marutam, the farmland, is the quarrel after a husband’s straying, under Vendan, Indra. Neytal, the seashore, is pining at dusk, under Varunan. Palai, the parched wasteland, is separation on a dangerous road, and Kotravai, Devi of victory, is honoured there. A Tamil listener heard a single flower named and knew the whole situation.

03The three Sangams

Sangam means an assembly. Nakkirar’s commentary on the Iraiyanar Akapporul gives the Tamil tradition: three assemblies of poets met under the Pandya kings. The first sat at Then Madurai, the southern Madurai, and Bhagwan Shiva and Murugan were counted among its members; the second at Kapatapuram; the sea took both cities. The third met at the present Madurai, and its works are the ones we hold. The Tiruvilaiyadal Purana adds the katha of the poet Nakkirar standing firm before Shiva himself over a single verse, and Madurai still tells it at the temple festivals.

04Kings, patrons and hero stones

Puram poems are spoken by bards to kings and chieftains, and they are frank. They praise the Chera, Chola and Pandya kings and the seven great patrons, among them Pari of Parambu, who gave his own chariot to a jasmine creeper that had nothing to climb on, and Athiyaman, who gave Avvaiyar the gooseberry of long life and kept none for himself. They also scold a king who is slow to give, mourn a patron killed in battle, and tell of the nadukal, the hero stone raised where a warrior fell, honoured with flowers and toddy. A mother in Purananuru 312 lists the duties of a household and ends with her son’s: to break the enemy’s elephants and come home.

05History in the verses

Pattinappalai describes Puhar, the Chola port at the mouth of the Kaveri, with horses landing from ships and pepper going out. Maduraikkanchi walks through Madurai from dawn to night, market by market. Poets name Karikala Chola and his victory at Venni, and the Pandya Nedunjeliyan’s victory at Talaiyalanganam. Akananuru 149 speaks of the Yavanas, Greek and Roman traders, arriving at Muziris in fine ships with gold and leaving with pepper. Excavations at Arikamedu, Pattanam and Keezhadi have since turned up the amphorae, beads and Tamil-Brahmi potsherds that sit alongside these lines.

06Murugan, Tirumal and the river

The anthologies open with prayers. Purananuru, Akananuru and Ainkurunuru begin with invocations to Bhagwan Shiva, Natrinai with one to Tirumal, and Kurunthokai with one to Murugan. Paripadal is a book of songs set to music for Tirumal, for Murugan of Tirupparankundram, and for the Vaigai river in flood, when all Madurai goes down to bathe. Thirumurugarruppadai, the first of the Ten Idylls, is a guide-poem: a devotee who has received Murugan’s grace directs another to his six abodes. It is still sung in Murugan temples, and the Shaiva canon counts it in the eleventh Tirumurai.

07Women poets and the one-poem poets

About thirty of the poets are women. Avvaiyar has more poems than any of them, and she speaks to kings as an equal, carrying messages of peace between them. Velliveethiyar, Kakkaipadiniyar Nachchellaiyar and Okkur Masathiyar are others. Many poets are remembered only by an image from their single poem. The author of Kurunthokai 40 is called Chempulapeyalneerar, “the poet of the rain on red earth”, because he wrote that two hearts in love had mixed like rainwater and red soil. Kapilar, a Brahmin poet of the hills, wrote more Sangam verse than anyone else, and his friend Paranar comes second.

08Brought back from palm leaf

For centuries these poems survived in palm-leaf bundles in monasteries and family homes, read by few and eaten by insects. C. W. Thamotharampillai printed the first of them, and U. V. Swaminatha Iyer walked from village to village in the late nineteenth century searching for manuscripts, comparing readings and printing editions with commentaries: the Pattupattu in 1889, the Purananuru in 1894, and more after. Tamil readers call him Tamil Thatha, grandfather of Tamil. The South India Saiva Siddhanta Works Publishing Society and later Tamil university presses carried the work on, and every anthology is now in print with its old commentary.

09Read today

Kaniyan Pungundranar’s line from Purananuru 192, yaadum oore yaavarum kelir, every town is our town and everyone our kin, is the most quoted Tamil verse in the world; it has been spoken from the podium of the United Nations General Assembly. Tamil Nadu’s school textbooks carry Sangam poems from the early classes. A. K. Ramanujan’s English versions, The Interior Landscape (1967) and Poems of Love and War (1985), brought them to readers abroad. Tamil was declared a classical language by the Government of India in 2004, and the Sangam anthologies were at the centre of that recognition.

What it contains

1
Natrinai நற்றிணை
400 akam poems of nine to twelve lines across the five landscapes, by some 175 poets. It opens with an invocation to Tirumal.
2
Kurunthokai குறுந்தொகை
About 400 of the shortest akam poems, four to eight lines each, by over two hundred poets. Poem 40, on rain and red earth, is the best loved, and its old commentators quote it more than any other anthology.
3
Ainkurunuru ஐங்குறுநூறு
500 very short love poems, a hundred for each landscape, each hundred by one poet: Orampokiyar for marutam, Ammuvanar for neytal, Kapilar for kurinji, Othalanthaiyar for palai and Peyanar for mullai.
4
Pathitruppathu பதிற்றுப்பத்து
Ten tens of puram poems praising ten Chera kings, each ten by one poet, with a note naming the gift the poet received. The first and last tens are lost.
5
Paripadal பரிபாடல்
Songs set to music, with the names of their composers and their pann (melody) recorded. Of seventy, about two dozen survive, to Tirumal, to Murugan of Tirupparankundram and to the Vaigai.
6
Kalittokai கலித்தொகை
150 love poems in the kali metre, often in dialogue, with more drama and humour than the other anthologies. Nallanthuvanar compiled it and wrote its neytal section.
7
Akananuru அகநானூறு
400 longer akam poems of thirteen to thirty-one lines, arranged by number: the odd poems are palai, those ending in ten are neytal. Full of place-names, chieftains and the Yavana ships at Muziris.
8
Purananuru புறநானூறு
400 puram poems on kings, war, patrons, hero stones and death, by some 157 poets, two of them now lost. It is the richest historical source of the age, and it holds “Yaadum oore” at 192.
9
Thirumurugarruppadai திருமுருகாற்றுப்படை
Nakkirar’s guide to the six abodes of Murugan, Tirupparankundram, Tiruchendur, Palani, Swamimalai, the hills where he dances, and Pazhamudircholai, in 317 lines. It opens the Ten Idylls and is sung as a hymn.
10
Porunararruppadai பொருநராற்றுப்படை
Mudathama Kanniyar’s 248 lines in which a bard directs another bard to the generous Karikala Chola, describing the Kaveri country on the way.
11
Sirupanarruppadai சிறுபாணாற்றுப்படை
Nallur Nattathanar’s guide-poem to the chieftain Nalliyakkodan. It names the seven great patrons of the age, Pari among them, and the gifts each was famous for.
12
Perumpanarruppadai பெரும்பாணாற்றுப்படை
Kadiyalur Uruthirankannanar’s 500 lines guiding a bard to Tondaiman Ilandiraiyan of Kanchi, describing the road through forest, pasture, farmland and coast and the people who live along it.
13
Mullaippattu முல்லைப்பாட்டு
Napputhanar’s idyll of 103 lines, the shortest: a queen waits through the rains for her king, while the poem cuts to his war camp at night.
14
Maduraikkanchi மதுரைக்காஞ்சி
Mangudi Marudanar’s 782 lines, the longest idyll: a portrait of Madurai under the Pandya Nedunjeliyan from dawn to night, ending with a reminder to the king that all things pass.
15
Nedunalvadai நெடுநல்வாடை
Nakkirar’s 188 lines on the long cold north wind: a lonely queen in the palace, and the king walking among his wounded soldiers by torchlight.
16
Kurinjippattu குறிஞ்சிப்பாட்டு
Kapilar’s hill-country love poem of 261 lines, said to have been written to teach the northern king Brahadatta the Tamil way of love. It names nearly a hundred flowers in one passage.
17
Pattinappalai பட்டினப்பாலை
Kadiyalur Uruthirankannanar’s 301 lines on Puhar under Karikala Chola, its ships, warehouses, customs officers and festivals, framed by a lover who will not leave his beloved even for such a city.
18
Malaipadukadam மலைபடுகடாம்
Perunkunrur Perunkausikanar’s 583 lines guiding a troupe of musicians to the hill chieftain Nannan, full of the sounds of the mountains: waterfalls, drums, elephants and bees.

Famous verses

யாதும் ஊரே யாவரும் கேளிர் தீதும் நன்றும் பிறர்தர வாரா
Every town is our town, everyone our kin. Evil and good do not come from others.Purananuru 192, lines 1–2 (Kaniyan Pungundranar)

யாயும் ஞாயும் யாரா கியரோ எந்தையும் நுந்தையும் எம்முறைக் கேளிர் யானும் நீயும் எவ்வழி யறிதும் செம்புலப் பெயனீர் போல அன்புடை நெஞ்சம் தாங்கலந் தனவே
What could my mother be to yours? How is my father kin to yours? How did you and I ever meet? Like rain falling on red earth, our loving hearts have mingled as one.Kurunthokai 40 (Chempulapeyalneerar; kurinji, the hero speaks)

ஈன்று புறந்தருதல் என்தலைக் கடனே சான்றோன் ஆக்குதல் தந்தைக்குக் கடனே
To bear him and raise him is my duty; to make him a man of worth is his father’s duty.Purananuru 312, lines 1–2 (Ponmudiyar)

Influence

The anthologies set the grammar of Tamil poetry described in the Tolkappiyam and shaped all later Tamil verse; A. K. Ramanujan’s English renderings carried them to world readers.