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Work of classical Tamil literature

The Purananuru (, literally "four hundred [poems] in the genre puram"), sometimes called Puram or Purappattu, is a classical Tamil poetic work and traditionally the last of the Eight Anthologies (Ettuthokai) in the Sangam literature. It is a collection of 400 heroic poems about kings, wars and public life, of which two are lost and a few have survived into the modern age in fragments. The collected poems were composed by 157 poets, of which 14 are anonymous and at least 10 were women. This anthology has been variously dated between 1st century BCE and 5th century CE, with Kamil Zvelebil, a Tamil literature scholar, dating predominantly all of the poems of Purananuru sometime between 2nd and 5th century CE. Nevertheless, few poems are dated to the period of 1st century BCE. The Purananuru anthology is diverse. Of its 400 poems, 138 praise 43 kings – 18 from the Chera dynasty (present day Kerala), 13 Chola dynasty kings, and 12 Early Pandya dynasty kings. Another 141 poems praise 48 chieftains. These panegyric poems recite their heroic deeds, as well as another 109 poems that recount deeds of anonymous heroes, likely of older Tamil oral tradition. Some of the poems are gnomic in nature, which have attracted unrealistic attempts to read an ethical message, states Zvelebil. The poetry largely focuses on war, means of war such as horses, heroic deeds, widowhood, hardships, impermanence, and other effects of wars between kingdoms based along the rivers Kaveri, Periyar and Vaigai. The Purananuru is the most important Tamil corpus of Sangam era courtly poems, and it has been a source of information on the political and social history of ancient Tamil Nadu. According to Hart and Heifetz, the Purananuru provides a view of the Tamil society before large scale Indo Aryan influences affected it. The life of the Tamils of this era revolved around the king, emphasized the purity of women and placed limitations of the rights of widows. Further, the compilation suggests that the ancient Tamils had a caste system called kuti. The anthology is almost entirely a secular treatise on the ancient Tamil thought on kingship, the constant state of wars within old Tamil speaking regions, the bravery of heroes and the ferocious nature of this violence. According to Amritha Shenoy, the Purananuru poems eulogize war and describe "loyalty, courage, honor" as the virtues of warriors. In contrast, Sivaraja Pillai cautions that the historical and literary value of Purananuru poems may be limited because the poems were not a perfect work of art but one of compulsion from impoverished poets too eager to praise one king or another, seeking patrons through exaggeration and flattery rather than objectivity. The Purananuru poems use words, phrases, and metaphors, including references to the Himalayas of "immeasurable heights", Shiva, Vishnu, the four Vedas, the Ramayana, rivers, and other aspects.

Among the eight Sangam anthologies, Purananuru and Pathitrupathu are concerned with life outside family – kings, wars, greatness, generosity, ethics and philosophy.

There are 400 poems in Purananuru including the invocation poem. Each poem measures anywhere between 4 and 40 lines. Poems 267 and 268 are lost, and some of the poems exist only in fragment. The author of 14 poems remain unknown. The remaining poems were written by 157 poets. Of the poets who wrote these poems, there are men and women, kings and paupers. The oldest book of annotations found so far has annotations and commentary on the first 266 poems. The commentator Nachinarkiniyar, of the eleventh–twelfth century Tamil Nadu, has written a complete commentary on all the poems.

The collected poems were composed by 157 poets, of which 14 are anonymous and at least 10 were poetess. Some of the authors of the poems, such as Kapilar and Nakkirar, have also written poems that are part of other anthologies.

There seems to be some definite structure to the order of the poems in Purananuru. The poems at the beginning of the book deal with the three major kings Chola, Chera and Pandya of ancient Tamil Nadu. The middle portion is on the lesser kings and the Velir chieftains, who were feudatories of these three major kingdoms, with a short intervening section (poems 182 195) of didactic poems. The final portion deals with the general scenery of war and the effect of warfare. The final portion of the text explains aftermath of the war and dead scenes. Some parts of the text mention kingdoms trying to stop the war by sending a Brahmin as an envoy to the war field, the Brahmin utters a few words to the warriors in the camp which stops the war.

Purananuru songs exhibit a unique realism and immediacy not frequently found in classical literature. The nature and the subject of the poems lend us to believe that poets did not write these poems on events that happened years prior, rather they wrote (or sang) them on impulse in situ. Some of the poems are conversational in which the poet pleads, begs, chides or praises the king. One such example is poem 46. The poet Kovur Kizhaar address the Chola king Killivalavan to save the lives of the children of a defeated enemy who are about to be executed by being trampled under an elephant. The poet says, " O king, you belong to the heritage of kings who sliced their own flesh to save the life of a pigeon, look at these children; they are so naïve of their plight that they have stopped crying to look at the swinging trunk of the elephant in amusement. Have pity on them " The almost impressionistic picture the poem paints cannot be anything but by someone who is witness to the events present in the poem. Many other poems also suggest that Cholas come from a heritage who sliced their own flesh to save the life of a pigeon. Such mentions make scholars debate that Cholas have claimed them selfs as the descendants of King Shibi Chakravarthy – a legendary hero who self sacrifices his body for saving a dove's life. The second poem by Mudinagarayar addresses the Chera king Uthayan Cheralaathan and praises him for his feeding the armies at the Kurukshetra war. This is an obvious anachronism suggesting a king of the early common era Tamil country had a role to play in the battle of the Mahabharata epic. Based on this one poem, there have been attempts at dating the Purananuru poems to around 1000 BCE or older.

Each Purananuru poem has a colophon attached to it giving the authorship and subject matter of the poem, the name of the king or chieftain to whom the poem relates and the occasion which called forth the eulogy are also found. It is from these colophons and rarely from the texts of the poems themselves, that we gather the names of many kings and chieftains and the poets and poetesses patronised by them. The task of reducing these names to an ordered scheme in which the different generations of contemporaries can be marked off one another has not been easy. To add to the confusions, some historians have even denounced these colophons as later additions and untrustworthy as historical documents. A careful study of the synchronisation between the kings, chieftains and the poets suggested by these colophons indicates that this body of literature reflect occurrences within a period of four or five continuous generations at the most, a period of 120 or 150 years. Any attempt at extracting a systematic chronology and data from these poems should be aware of the casual nature of these poems and the wide difference between the purposes of the anthologist who collected these poems and the historian’s attempts are arriving at a continuous history. There have been unsuccessful attempts at dating the poems of Purananuru based on the mention of the Mahabharata war. A more reliable source for the period of these poems is based on the mentions one finds on the foreign trade and presence of Greek and Roman merchants in the port of Musiri (poem 343), which give us a date of between 200 BCE to 150 CE for the period of these poems. This is further strengthened by the mention of a reference to Ramayana in poem 378, and a reference to Maurya in poem 175, which indicates a late date of about 187 BCE. A combination of these two considerations would indicate a composition date range during the 2nd century BCE.

The text has several mentions of Vedas and Rituals based on Vedas. According to Purananuru poem 362, Vedas are said to be a great text which ultimately speaks righteousness and does not speak about materialism or heartlessness Palyagasalai Muthukudumi Peruvazhuthi and Rajasooyam Vetta Perunarkilli. Each Purananuru poem has a colophon attached to it giving the authorship and the name of the king or chieftain to whom the poem relates, Poem 15 written by Nettimiyar sings the grace of a King Muthukudumi Peruvazhuthi who performed several Vedic Sacrifices known as "Yagam" and gives him an epithet name "Palyagasalai" (lit. "Many Yagams or Vedic Sacrifices"), the poet praises him as he performed several Yagams according to the 4 esteemed Vedas by pouring ghee and other sacrificial elements. and compares him to 3 main ritual fires performed by the twice born Brahmins.

According to Hart and Heifetz, several poems in Purananuru talk about God of Death, Death of kings, helplessness of widows, youth versus old age, memorial stones and Death rituals. after Death of a King the people and poets scold the god of death who takes the life of the generous kings, women beat their Breasts and their bangles break into pieces. according to several poems mention that people were commonly burnt in the cremation ground, Tamils also believed in re birth and only good deeds would lead them to a better life in their next birth. It also claims that Indra who holds the Vajrayudam welcomes the soul of a Great king Ay Andiran as he did good deeds. There are several mentions of Pinda (riceball) offered to the dead corpse and later burnt, after all the rituals they plant a Naṭukal for the king and decorate it. Naṭukal is a memorial stone dedicated to the honorable death of a hero in battle. Naṭukal has several mentions in this text and explains when was it erected. After a great King or warrior dies his body is burnt, then they erect a hero stone for him as a memorial. Avvaiyar in poem 232 describes the Naṭukal of Athiyamān Nedumān Añci, it is decorated with peacock feathers and toddy is kept near by.

The earliest reference to the Epic Ramayana in Tamil literature is found in the Purananuru 378, attributed to the poet UnPodiPasunKudaiyar, written in praise of the Chola king IIamchetchenni. The poem makes the analogy of a poet receiving royal gifts and that worn by the relatives of the poet as being unworthy for their status, to the event in the Ramayana, where Sita drops her jewels when abducted by Ravana and these jewels being picked up red faced monkeys who delightfully wore the ornaments. He reprinted the literature present in the palm leaf form to paper books. He published Purananuru for the first time in 1894. Ramaswami Mudaliar, a Tamil scholar, first gave him the palm leaves of Civaka Cintamani to study. Along with the text, he added abundant commentary and explanatory notes of terms, textual variations and approaches to explaining the context.