Sangam literature

The Sangam literature (Tamil: சங்க இலக்கியம், caṅka ilakkiyam), historically known as 'the poetry of the noble ones' (Tamil: சான்றோர் செய்யுள், Cāṉṟōr ceyyuḷ), connotes the early classical Tamil literature and is the earliest known literature of South India. The Tamil tradition links it to legendary literary gatherings around Madurai in the ancient Pandya kingdom. It is generally accepted by most scholars that the historical Sangam literature era, also known as the Sangam period, spanned from c. 100 BCE to 250 CE, on the basis of linguistic, epigraphic, archaeological, numismatic and historical data; though some scholars give a broader range of 300 BCE to 300 CE.
The Eighteen Greater Texts (Patiṉeṇmēlkaṇakku), along with the Tamil grammar work Tolkappiyam, are collectively considered as Sangam literature. These texts are classified into the Ettuttokai (Eight Anthologies) and Pattupattu (Ten Idylls). They encompass both Akam (interior) themes, focusing on personal emotions and love, and Puram (exterior) themes, emphasizing heroism, ethics, and societal values. Notable works include Akananuru (400 love poems), Purananuru (400 heroic poems), Kurunthogai (short love poems), and Natrinai (poems set in five landscapes). The Pattuppāṭṭu highlights specific regions and rulers, with works like Malaipadukadam and Perumpanarrupadai serving as guides to wealth and prosperity.
The Sangam literature had fallen into obscurity for much of the 2nd millennium CE, but were preserved by the monasteries near Kumbakonam. These texts were rediscovered and compiled in the 19th century by Tamil scholars, notably Mahamahopadhyaya Dr. U.V. Swaminatha Iyer. Over five decades, Iyer undertook extensive travels to locate palm-leaf manuscripts, leading to the revival of ancient Tamil history, including insights into the Chera, Chola, and Pandya kingdoms, Tamil chieftains such as Pari, and the rich descriptions of Sangam landscapes and culture.
The Tamil tradition and legends link it to three legendary literary gatherings around Madurai and Kapāṭapuram: the first lasted over 4,440 years, the second over 3,700 years, and the third over 1,850 years. Scholars consider this Tamil tradition-based chronology as ahistorical and mythical.
Sangam literally means "gathering, meeting, fraternity, academy". According to David Shulman, a scholar of Tamil language and literature, the Tamil tradition believes that the Sangam literature arose in distant antiquity over three periods, each stretching over many millennia. The first has roots in the Hindu deity Shiva, his son Murugan, Kubera as well as 545 sages including the famed Rigvedic poet Agastya. The first academy, states the legend, extended over four millennia and was located far to the south of modern city of Madurai, a location later "swallowed up by the sea", states Shulman. The second academy, also chaired by a very long-lived Agastya, was near the eastern seaside Kapāṭapuram and lasted three millennia. This was swallowed by floods. From the second Sangam, states the legend, the Akattiyam and the Tolkāppiyam survived and guided the third Sangam scholars.
A prose commentary by Nakkiranar – likely about the eighth century CE – describes this legend. The earliest known mention of the Sangam legend, however, appears in Tirupputtur Tantakam by Appar in about the seventh century CE, while an extended version appears in the twelfth-century Tiruvilaiyatal puranam by Perumparrap Nampi. The legend states that the third Sangam of 449 poet scholars worked over 1,850 years in northern Madurai (Pandyan kingdom). He lists six anthologies of Tamil poems (later a part of Ettuttokai):
These claims of the Sangams and the description of sunken land masses Kumari Kandam have been dismissed as frivolous by historiographers. Noted historians like Kamil Zvelebil have stressed that the use of 'Sangam literature' to describe this corpus of literature is a misnomer and Classical literature should be used instead. According to Shulman, "there is not the slightest shred of evidence that any such [Sangam] literary academies ever existed", though there are many Pandya inscriptions that mention an academy of scholars. Of particular note, states Shulman, is the tenth-century CE Sinnamanur inscription that mentions a Pandyan king who sponsored the "translation of the Mahabharata into Tamil" and established a "Madhurapuri (Madurai) Sangam".
According to Zvelebil, within the myth there is a kernel of reality, and all literary evidence leads one to conclude that "such an academy did exist in Madurai (Maturai) at the beginning of the Christian era". The homogeneity of the prosody, language and themes in these poems confirms that the Sangam literature was a community effort, a "group poetry". The Sangam literature is also referred sometimes with terms such as caṅka ilakkiyam or "Sangam age poetry".
In Old Tamil language, the term Tamilakam (Tamiḻakam, Purananuru 168. 18) referred to the whole of the ancient Tamil-speaking area, corresponding roughly to the area known as southern India today, consisting of the territories of the present-day Indian states of Tamil Nadu, Kerala, parts of Andhra Pradesh and Karnataka. Sri Lanka is distinguished from it and is known as Ilam or Eelam, although also influenced by the Sangam Period.
In Indian history, the Sangam period or age (Tamil: சங்ககாலம், caṅkakālam) is the period of the history of ancient Tamil Nadu and Kerala (then known as Tamilakam), and parts of Sri Lanka from c. 300 BCE to 300 CE. It was named after the literature of poets and scholars of the legendary Sangam academies centered in the city of Madurai.
In the period between 300 BCE and 300 CE, Tamilakam was ruled by the three Tamil dynasties of Pandya, Chola and Chera, and a few independent chieftains, the Velir. The evidence on the early history of the Tamil kingdoms consists of the epigraphs of the region, the Sangam literature, and archaeological data.
The fourfold Vedic system of caste hierarchy did not exist during the Sangam period. The society was organised by occupational groups living apart from each other.
K.A. Nilakanta Shastri suggests that this body of literature reflects events over a span of four or five generations, amounting to about 120 to 150 years, thus placing the Sangam age roughly between 100 CE and 250 CE. Swamikannu Pillai dated Paripatal, one of the Sangam era text, to the 7th century CE. Kamil Zvelebil, on the other hand, proposed that the most plausible date for the bulk of early Tamil literature is the 2nd century CE, with the exceptions of works like Paripatal, Kalittokai, and Tirumurukaraarruppatai, which belong to a later period. When he took into consideration the cumulative evidence of the linguistic, epigraphic, archaeological, numismatic and historical data, both internal and external, he concluded that the ancient Tamil literature may be dated between 100 BCE and 250 CE.
Tolkappiyam, the ancient Tamil grammar text written by Tolkappiyar, consists of three parts: Eluttatikaram (Phonology), Sollatikaram (Semantics), and Porulatikaram (Context and Meaning). It is generally dated to approximately 100 BCE. However, S. Vaiyapuri Pillai suggests that Tolkappiyar was a Jain scholar well-versed in the Aintiram grammatical system and posits a later date, placing him in southern Kerala around the 5th century CE. Notably, Tolkappiyam incorporates several Sanskrit and Prakrit loanwords, reflecting its historical and linguistic context. Iravatham Mahadevan, based on epigraphic evidence, dates the text to no later than the 2nd century CE, highlighting its significance in early Tamil literary tradition.
This collection contains 2381 poems in Tamil composed by 473 poets, some 102 anonymous. Of these, 16 poets account for about 50% of the known Sangam literature, with Kapilar – the most prolific poet – alone contributing just little less than 10% of the entire corpus. These poems vary between 3 and 782 lines long. The bardic poetry of the Sangam era is largely about love (akam) and war (puram), with the exception of the shorter poems such as in Paripaatal which is more religious and praise Vishnu and Murugan.
The Sangam literature was composed by 473 poets, some 102 anonymous. According to Nilakanta Sastri, the poets came from diverse backgrounds: some were from a royal family, some merchants, some farmers. At least 27 of the poets were women. These poets emerged, states Nilakanta Sastri, in a milieu where the Tamil society had already interacted and inseparably amalgamated with north Indians (Indo-Aryan) and both sides had shared mythology, values and literary conventions.
The available literature from this period was categorised and compiled in the tenth century CE into two categories based roughly on chronology. The categories are the Patiṉeṇmēlkaṇakku ("Eighteen Greater Texts") comprising Ettuthogai (or Ettuttokai, "Eight Anthologies") and the Pattuppāṭṭu ("Ten Idylls") and Patiṉeṇkīḻkaṇakku ("Eighteen Lesser Texts").
Sangam literature is broadly classified into akam (அகம், inner), and puram (புறம், outer). The akam poetry is about emotions and feelings in the context of romantic love, sexual union and eroticism. The puram poetry is about exploits and heroic deeds in the context of war and public life. Approximately three-fourths of the Sangam poetry is akam themed, and about one fourth is puram.
Sangam literature, both akam and puram, can be subclassified into seven minor genre called tiṇai (திணை). This minor genre is based on the location or landscape in which the poetry is set. These are: kuṟiñci (குறிஞ்சி), mountainous regions; mullai (முல்லை), pastoral forests; marutam (மருதம்), riverine agricultural land; neytal (நெய்தல்) coastal regions; pālai (பாலை) arid. In addition to the landscape based tiṇais, for akam poetry, ain-tinai (well matched, mutual love), kaikkilai (ill matched, one sided), and perunthinai (unsuited, big genre) categories are used. The Ainkurunuru – 500 short poems anthology – is an example of mutual love poetry.
Similar tiṇais pertain to puram poems as well, categories are sometimes based on activity: vetchi (cattle raid), vanchi (invasion, preparation for war), kanchi (tragedy), ulinai (siege), tumpai (battle), vakai (victory), paataan (elegy and praise), karanthai , and pothuviyal. The akam poetry uses metaphors and imagery to set the mood, never uses names of person or places, often leaves the context as well that the community will fill in and understand given their oral tradition. The puram poetry is more direct, uses names and places, states Takanobu Takahashi.
The early Sangam poetry diligently follows two meters, while the later Sangam poetry is a bit more diverse. The two meters found in the early poetry are akaval and vanci. The fundamental metrical unit in these is the acai (metreme), itself of two types – ner and nirai. The ner is the stressed/long syllable in European prosody tradition, while the nirai is the unstressed/short syllable combination (pyrrhic (dibrach) and iambic) metrical feet, with similar equivalents in the Sanskrit prosody tradition. The acai in the Sangam poems are combined to form a cir (foot), while the cir are connected to form a talai, while the line is referred to as the ati. The sutras of the Tolkappiyam – particularly after sutra 315 – state the prosody rules, enumerating the 34 component parts of ancient Tamil poetry.
The prosody of an example early Sangam poem is illustrated by Kuruntokai:
The prosodic pattern in this poem follows the 4-4-3-4 feet per line, according to akaval, also called aciriyam, Sangam meter rule:
A literal translation of Kuruntokai 119:
English interpretation and translation of Kuruntokai 119:
This metrical pattern, states Zvelebil, gives the Sangam poetry a "wonderful conciseness, terseness, pithiness", then an inner tension that is resolved at the end of the stanza. The metrical patterns within the akaval meter in early Sangam poetry has minor variations. The later Sangam era poems follow the same general meter rules, but sometimes feature 5 lines (4-4-4-3-4). The later Sangam age texts employ other meters as well, such as the Kali meter in Kalittokai and the mixed Paripatal meter in Paripatal.
The works of Sangam literature were lost and forgotten for most of the 2nd millennium. They were rediscovered by colonial-era scholars such as Arumuka Navalar (1822–1879), C.W. Damodaram Pillai (1832–1901) and U. V. Swaminatha Aiyar (1855–1942).
Arumuka Navalar from Jaffna first inaugurated the modern editions of Tamil classics, publishing a fine edition of Tirukkuṟaḷ by 1860. Navalar – who translated the Bible into Tamil while working as an assistant to a Methodist Christian missionary, chose to defend and popularize Shaiva Hinduism against missionary polemics, in part by bringing ancient Tamil and Shaiva literature to wider attention. He brought the first Sangam text into print in 1851 (Tirumurukāṟṟuppaṭai, one of the Ten Idylls). In 1868, Navalar published an early commentary on Tolkappiyam.
C.W. Damodaram Pillai, also from Jaffna, was the earliest scholar to systematically hunt for long-lost manuscripts and publish them using modern tools of textual criticism. These included:
Aiyar – a Tamil scholar and a Shaiva pundit, in particular, is credited with his discovery of major collections of the Sangam literature in 1883. During his personal visit to the Thiruvavaduthurai Adhinam – a Shaiva matha about twenty kilometers northeast of Kumbhakonam, he reached out to the monastery head Subrahmanya Desikar for access to its large library of preserved manuscripts. Desikar granted Aiyar permission to study and publish any manuscripts he wanted. There, Aiyar discovered a major source of preserved palm-leaf manuscripts of Sangam literature. Aiyar published his first print of the Ten Idylls in 1889. Iyer's relentless pursuit took him to remote villages, libraries, and private collections across Tamil Nadu, such as the Saraswathi Mahal Library in Thanjavur and temples in Madurai, Thiruvavaduthurai Saivite mutt etc.
Together, these scholars printed and published Kalittokai (1887), Tholkappiyam, Nachinarkiniyar Urai (1895), Tholkappiyam Senavariyar urai (1868), Manimekalai (1898), Silappatikaram (1889), Pattuppāṭṭu (1889), Patiṟṟuppattu (1889). Puṟanāṉūṟu (1894), Aiṅkurunūṟu (1903), Kuṟuntokai (1915), Naṟṟiṇai (1915), Paripāṭal (1918) and Akanāṉūṟu (1923) all with scholarly commentaries. They published more than 100 works in all, including minor poems.
The Sangam literature is the historic evidence of indigenous literary developments in South India in parallel to Sanskrit, and the classical status of the Tamil language. While there is no evidence for the first and second mythical Sangams, the surviving literature attests to a group of scholars centered around the ancient Madurai (Maturai) that shaped the "literary, academic, cultural and linguistic life of ancient Tamil Nadu", states Zvelebil. On their significance, Zvelebil quotes A. K. Ramanujan, "In their antiquity and in their contemporaneity, there is not much else in any Indian literature equal to these quiet and dramatic Tamil poems. In their values and stances, they represent a mature classical poetry: passion is balanced by courtesy, transparency by ironies and nuances of design, impersonality by vivid detail, austerity of line by richness of implication. These poems are not just the earliest evidence of the Tamil genius."
The Sangam literature offers a window into some aspects of the ancient Tamil culture, secular and religious beliefs, and the people. For example, in the Sangam era Ainkurunuru poem 202 is one of the earliest mentions of "pigtail of Brahmin boys". These poems also allude to historical incidents, ancient Tamil kings, the effect of war on loved ones and households. The Pattinappalai poem in the Ten Idylls group, for example, paints a description of the Chola capital, the king Karikal, the life in a harbor city with ships and merchandise for seafaring trade, the dance troupes, the bards and artists, the worship of the Hindu god Vishnu, Murugan and the monasteries of Buddhism and Jainism. This Sangam era poem remained in the active memory and was significant to the Tamil people centuries later, as evidenced by its mention nearly 1,000 years later in the 11th- and 12th-century inscriptions and literary work.
Sangam literature embeds evidence of loan words from Sanskrit, suggesting on-going linguistic and literary collaboration between ancient Tamil Nadu and other parts of the Indian subcontinent. One of the early loan words, for example, is acarya– from Sanskrit for a "spiritual guide or teacher", which in Sangam literature appears as aciriyan (priest, teacher, scholar), aciriyam or akavar or akaval or akavu (a poetic meter).
The Sangam poetry focuses on the culture and people. It is religious as well as non-religious, as there are several mentions of the Hindu gods and more substantial mentions of various gods in the shorter poems. The 33 surviving poems of Paripaatal in the "Eight Anthologies" group praises Vishnu, Durga and Murugan. Similarly, the 150 poems of Kalittokai – also from the Eight Anthologies group – mention Krishna, Shiva, Murugan, various Pandava brothers of the Mahabharata, Kama, goddesses such as Ganga, divine characters from classical love stories of India. One of the poems also mentions the "merciful men of Benares", an evidence of interaction between the northern holy city of the Hindus with the Sangam poets. Some of the Paripaatal love poems are set in the context of bathing festivals (Magh Mela) and various Hindu gods. They mention temples and shrines, confirming the significance of such cultural festivals and architectural practices to the Tamil culture.
Religion in the Sangam age was an important reason for the increase in Tamil Literature. Ancient Tamils Primarily followed Vaishnavism (Who consider Vishnu as the Supreme Deity) and Kaumaram (who worship Murugan as the Supreme god). According to Kamil Zvelebil, Vishnu was considered ageless (The god who stays for ever) and the Supreme god of Tamils where as Skanda was considered young and a personal god of Tamils.
Mayon is indicated to be the deity associated with the mullai tiṇai (pastoral landscape) in the Tolkappiyam. Tolkappiyar Mentions Mayon first when he made reference to deities in the different land divisions. The Paripādal (Tamil: பரிபாடல், meaning the paripadal-metre anthology) is a classical Tamil poetic work and traditionally the fifth of the Eight Anthologies (Ettuthokai) in the Sangam literature. According to Tolkappiyam, Paripadal is a kind of verse dealing only with love (akapporul) and does not fall under the general classification of verses. Sangam literature (200 BCE to 500 CE) mentions Mayon or the "dark one," as the Supreme deity who creates, sustains, and destroys the universe and was worshipped in the Plains and mountains of Tamilakam.The Earliest verses of Paripadal describe the glory of Perumal in the most poetic of terms. Many Poems of the Paripadal consider Perumal as the Supreme god of Tamils. He is regarded to be the only deity who enjoyed the status of Paramporul (achieving oneness with Paramatma) during the Sangam age. He is also known as Māyavan, Māmiyon, Netiyōn, and Māl in Sangam literature and considered as the most mentioned god in the Sangam literature.
Cēyōṉ "the red one", who is identified with Murugan, whose name is literally Murukaṉ "the youth" in the Tolkāppiyam; Extant Sangam literature works, dated between the third century BCE and the fifth century CE glorified Murugan, "the red god seated on the blue peacock, who is ever young and resplendent," as "the favoured god of the Tamils." There are no Mentions of Shaivism in Tolkappiyam. Shiva and Brahma are said to be forms Of Maha Vishnu and considers Vishnu as The Supreme god in Paripāṭal.
There are two poems depicted as example of Bhakti in Ancient Tamil Nadu, one in the praise of Maha Vishnu and other of Murugan
To Tirumal (Maha Vishnu):
To Seyyon (Skandha):
The other gods also referred to in the Tolkappiyam are Vēntaṉ "the sovereign" (identified with Indra) and Korravai "the victorious" (identified with Durga) and Varunan "the sea god".
The Sangam literature also emphasized on fair governance by Kings, who were often described as Sengol-valavan, the king who established just rule; the king was warned by priests that royal injustice would lead to divine punishment; and handing over of a royal scepter, Sengol denoting decree to rule fairly, finds mention in texts such as the Purananooru, Kurunthogai, Perumpaanatrupadai, and Kalithogai.
Further, the colophons of the Paripaatal poems mention music and tune, signifying the development and the importance of musical arts in ancient Tamil Nadu. According to Zvelebil, these poems were likely from the late Sangam era (2nd or 3rd century CE) and attest to a sophisticated and prosperous ancient civilization.
The first music album on Tamil Sangam poetry titled Sandham: Symphony Meets Classical Tamil by Composer Rajan Somasundaram in collaboration with Durham Symphony, featured in Amazon's Top#10 'International Music albums' category in July 2020 and was called "A Major event in the world of Music" by The Hindu Music review.
Sangam poems are often quoted and paraphrased in modern Tamil cinema.