எட்டுத்தொகை
Ettuthogai — The Eight Anthologies
The core of the Sangam corpus: eight separate anthologies — including Kuruntokai, Akananuru, and Purananuru — collecting short and long poems of love (akam) and public life (puram) from hundreds of named and unnamed poets.
The Ettuthogai, or 'Eight Anthologies', together with the Pattuppattu, form the surviving core of classical Sangam literature. The eight component collections — Natrinai, Kuruntokai, Ainkurunuru, Patitrupathu, Paripadal, Kalithokai, Akananuru, and Purananuru — vary in length and style but share the thinai-based poetic conventions laid out in the Tolkappiyam. Broadly, the poems fall into two great thematic streams: akam poetry, dealing with the inner, personal world of love and courtship, almost always without naming its subjects; and puram poetry, dealing with the outer, public world of war, kingship, ethics, and the poet's own place in society. Purananuru in particular is prized by historians for its vivid portraits of real Sangam-era chieftains and kings, praised and sometimes gently criticized by poets who depended on royal patronage yet wrote with striking independence. Together the anthologies preserve the voices of several hundred poets, women and men, named and anonymous, offering a uniquely intimate, secular window into life in the Tamil country two thousand years ago.
Highlights
- Eight component anthologies: Natrinai, Kuruntokai, Ainkurunuru, Patitrupathu, Paripadal, Kalithokai, Akananuru, Purananuru
- Divided thematically into akam (love) and puram (public/war) poetry
- Purananuru offers historians rare direct portraits of named Sangam-era rulers
- Preserves work from several hundred poets, including many women poets
Compiled from many Sangam-era poets
Poetry anthology
c. 3rd century BCE – 3rd century CE