THE SANGAM LITERATURE
The Sangam literature explains the early history of Tamilakam (the entire Tamil region), which is of immense historical importance. Tolkappiyam, a discourse by Tolkappiyar on Tamil semantics and syntactics, that is evidently composed during the second Sangam, is the oldest extant literary work in Tamil. Now, the research ers use the term 'Sangam Literature' for only those works in verse (prose is of much later origin), which are controlled in the academic and literary compositions, like the Ettuthogai (Eight collections), Pattupattu (Ten village songs) and Pathinenkil- kanakku (The Eighteen Minor Works), which are believed to have been produced during the period 150-250 CE. The recurrently called 'Five Epics' (the five great poems) which entailed of Jivaka Chintamani, Silappadikaram, Manimekalai, Va- layapathi and Kundalakesi are dispensed on much later dates. Of these, the last two are not extant. So, of the three 'great poems' that we now have, Silappadikar- am by Ilango Adigal and Manimekalai by Sathnar are called the 'twin epics' as they form a continuous series narrating the story of a single family-Kovalan (the rich merchant of Puhar), Kannagi (Kovalan's chaste wife), Madhavi (the dancer) with whom Kovalan lived in wedlock, and Manimekalai, the daughter born out of this wedlock. In the epic, Ilango is cited as the brother of the administrating Chera king Senguttuvan. Manimekalai was written mainly to promulgate the Buddhist doctrine among Tamils. Nonetheless, these poetical works describe about the so- cial, religious, economic and party-political conditions of Tamilakam with the fo- cus on the cities, like Madurai, Puhar (Poompuhar/Kaveripattinam), Vanji (Karur) and Kanchi.
The credible dates of the versifications and academic writings can be cited to the first three centuries of the Christian era. They were probably collected and anthologized in the order in which they are now found, at a much later date. The poems in the 'Ettuthogai' run from 3 to 31 lines, whereas in the 'Pattupattu', the shortest poem runs to 103 lines and the longest has 782 lines. The 'Eighteen Mi- nor Works' include the principled and moralistic literature. The didactic literature, which includes the world famous Thirukkural of Thiruvalluvar, is mostly in stan- zaic form, the stanzas having from two to five lines.
The current variable count of the Sangam anthology comes to 2279 poems of changing lengths from 3 lines to about 800 lines. Some of these are ascribed to a single author, while others like the Naladiyar, contain the contributions of many poets. These were composed by 473 poets including 50 women besides 102 being unsigned.
The anthologies and their unconventional additions replicate fairly advanced quantifiable philosophy. They also show that by the Sangam Age, Tamil as a lan- guage had attained dignity and had become an influential and sophisticated me- dium of mythical expression. The language is inevitably ancient, though not per- chance more difficult to understand for the modern Tamil.
The Sangam poems are of two types-one the short ode, and two, a long poem. The short odes are considered to be of greater value than the long lyrics as far as the historical importance is concerned. However, generally the historical importance of these sources are irrespective of their length. The odes are scribed and assimilated by the versification styles in eight anthol- ogies. The anthologies in which these are collected include-
1.Ahananuru,
2. Purananuru,
3. Kuruntogai,
4. Narrinai,
5. Kalittogai,
6. Paripadal,
Aingurunuru Patirrupattu: These are collectively called Ettuthogai. The ten long lyrics or descriptive poems (10 idylls) known as Pattupattu is said to be ninth group. Pattupattu consists of-
1. Tirumurugarruppadai,
2. Sirupanarruppadai,
3. Porunarruppadai,
4. Perumbanarruppadai,
5. Nedunalvadai,
6. Kurinjippattu,
7. Maduraikkanji,
8.Pattinappalai,
9. Mullaippatu
10. Malaipadukadam
There are further classifications to the separate and standalone works:
1.Tirumurugarruppadai is a devotional poem on Lord Murugan;
2.Sirupanarruppadai deals with the generous nature of Nalliyakkodan, who ruled over a part of the Chola kingdom.
3.Perumbanarruppadai describes about Thondaiman llanthirayan and his capital Kanchipuram;
4. Porunarruppadai;
5.Pattinappalai sings in the praise of Karikala, the great Chola king;
6.Nedunalvadai and Maduraikkanji deal with Talaiyalanganattu Nedun- jeliyan, the great Pandyan king:
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