Jewels of women loosen - Ainkurunooru 25

'Ettuththokai' meaning the Eight anthologies is a collection of poems from ancient Tami literature or the Sangam Literature. The lifestyle of the people was dependent on the nature of the landforms. Hence the poems are also categorized into five landforms typically called as five 'thinai's. Those are kurinji, mullai, marutham, neithal and paalai. Kurinji refers to the mountains and adjoining lands. Mullai refers to the forests and adjoining lands. Marutham refers to the plains and adjoining lands. Neithal refers to the sea and adjoining lands. Palai doesn't have a separate landform, thereby the Kurinji and Mullai lands dried by drought were referred to as Paalai. This is just a small intruduction to get you all started. I will discuss more about these thinais in different posts from now on. Of the five, Marutham poems speak of the hero's infidelity and the heroine's sorrow.

Among the eight anthologies, Ainkurunooru is a collection of 500 short poems. Each thinai has 100 poems based on it. So a 100 poems numbered 1 to 100 are based on Marutham thinai which speak of the hero's infidelity. These poems were sung by a poet named Orampogiyaar.

Let us see one such poem, which is the 25th poem in the Ainkurunooru collection.

Sangam Literature - my first post

I am passionate about literature, especially Tamil. I love the Sangam or ancient Tamil literature for it speaks about the history and life of ancient Tamils. Sangam Literature is so sweet in text and meaning that I thought it wouldn't be nice not to share it. The poems are so deep and lovely in bringing out the landscape and life of early Tamils. I think that these are significant not only for the Tamils but for all mankind, since its about ancient humans and history. Tamils are one of the earliest civilizations.

Sangam poems were written during Sangam period spanning between 300BC and 300AD. The poems were written by various poets. Those were lost until the 19th century until Mr.U.V. Swaminatha Iyer searched and discovered the palm manuscripts. He along with his teacher C.W. Thamodharam Pillai worked hard in collecting the ancient sangam poems and making it known to the world. Mr.U.V.Swaminatha Iyer is fondly called as "Tamil Thatha" meaning the 'Grandfather of the Tamils', without whom we wouldn't have known such a remarkable treasure.

So with due respect to him and all the ancient sangam poets, I embark on my journey into the sangam world. I will write about the sangam literature, the lovely poems with easy explanation in English.