Akam and puram

Topic: Sangam Age and Early South India · NCERT: Beyond NCERT

Meaning

Akam and puram are the two main themes into which Sangam poems are grouped. Akam ("inner") poems are about love. Puram ("outer") poems are about war and public life, including praise of kings and their deeds [1].

This split matters because it shapes the whole of the earliest Tamil literature. It also tells historians which poems to read for which purpose. Puram poems tell us about chiefs, battles and gifts. Akam poems, through their landscapes, give us glimpses of everyday life, work and society.

Explanation

Background: the Sangam poems

• Sangam literature is the earliest Tamil literary tradition and the oldest literature of south India. It is dated c. 300 BCE – 300 CE.
• Sangam comes from the Sanskrit sangha, which means "association". Here it means an assembly of poets. According to tradition, the poems were produced in three sangams (literary academies) at Madurai [1].
• The poems survive as anthologies (collections of poems). The best known is the Ettuttokai, the eight anthologies [1].
• Every poem in these collections is sorted under one of two themes: akam or puram.

Akam: the "inner" world

• Akam means "inner". These poems deal with love and private feeling.
• Main features:
• They cover the lovers' meeting, longing, separation, waiting and quarrels.
• By convention the lovers are usually not named. They stand for any man and any woman, not a real person.

• In the classical tradition, each mood of love is tied to a tinai (a type of landscape). Examples are hills, forest, farmland, seashore and dry wasteland. The plants, animals and work of that landscape set the scene.

• Of the anthologies, the first five collections are given to love, according to Britannica [1].

Puram: the "outer" world

• Puram means "outer". These poems deal with war and public life [1].
• Main features:
• They praise kings and chiefs: their battles, courage and generosity.
• Unlike akam poems, they often name real rulers, places and poets.

• They speak of heroism, death in battle, mourning and the duty of a ruler to give gifts.

• According to Britannica, the next two collections are given to heroism [1].

• Puram poems are the closest thing to a political record for early Tamilakam. They describe the Chera, Chola and Pandya houses and the many smaller chiefs [1].

What the split achieved

• Together, akam and puram cover all of human life: the private home and the public world.
• The rules for both themes are laid down in Tolkappiyam, the grammar text:
• Tolkappiyam is a book of grammar and rhetoric [1].

• In the classical tradition, it sets out how each theme should be written.

• Beyond love and war, the poems also carry material on political organisation, social structures and economic activities, written "with great skill and delicacy".

Time, place and evidence

• Period: Sangam Age, c. 300 BCE – 300 CE (NCERT). Britannica places the surviving poems in the 1st to 4th century CE, a narrower range [1]. Use the NCERT dates in the exam.
• Region: Tamilakam, the ancient Tamil country. It covered Tamil Nadu plus parts of present-day Andhra Pradesh and Kerala.
• Rulers praised in puram poems: the three big houses [1]:
• Chera: Malabar Coast [1].
• Chola: Thanjavur and the Kaveri valley [1].

• Pandya: Madurai. The Pandyas are praised in the earliest Tamil poetry [1].

• Place of composition: according to tradition, the three sangams at Madurai [1].

• How we know about it:
• The poems themselves, collected in the Ettuttokai [1].

• Tolkappiyam, which gives the rules of the two themes [1].

• Checking the poems against other evidence: puram poems are praise written for patrons, so historians test them against outside sources:

• Ashoka's edicts, which name the Cholas, Pandyas, Keralaputras and Satiyaputras.
• Megasthenes.
• The Periplus of the Erythraean Sea (c. 40–70 CE) [3][4].
• Excavations at Kodumanal, Adichchanallur and Keezhadi [2][5].

Don't confuse with

• Tirukkural: a work by Tiruvalluvar on ethics and conduct. Ethics is its own subject. It is not the puram theme, which is about war, kings and public life.
• Tolkappiyam: the grammar (grammar and rhetoric) text that lays down the rules for writing akam and puram [1]. It is not a collection of love or war poems.
• Silappadikaram and Manimekalai: the Tamil epics, which are long story-poems. They are not the short akam and puram poems of the anthologies.
• Ettuttokai: the name of the eight anthologies (the collections) [1]. Akam and puram are the themes inside them, not the names of books.

Prelims Hooks

• Akam = "inner" = love. Puram = "outer" = war and public life, including praise of kings [1].
• In the anthologies, love fills the first five collections and heroism the next two (Britannica) [1].
• Ettuttokai = the eight anthologies of Sangam poetry [1].
• Tolkappiyam = grammar and rhetoric. Tirukkural = Tiruvalluvar (ethics). Silappadikaram and Manimekalai = epics.
• Sangam comes from Sanskrit sangha ("association"). Here it means an assembly of poets, traditionally at Madurai [1].
• Trap: "Puram poems deal mainly with ethics" is wrong. Puram is war and public life. Ethics belongs to the Tirukkural.

Mains Points

• Literature as a historical source, with limits.
• Puram poems are the main window on chiefs, battles and gift-giving in early Tamilakam.

• But they are praise-poetry written for patrons, so their claims must be tested against Ashokan edicts, Megasthenes, the Periplus and digs at Kodumanal, Adichchanallur and Keezhadi [2][4][5].

• Akam poems as social history.

• Akam poems are not just love poems. Their landscapes show farming, herding, fishing and hill life.

• So they help historians rebuild the social structures and economic activities of the Sangam Age, which no state archive records.

• A mature and independent literary culture.

• A fixed two-part system of themes, with a grammar (Tolkappiyam) setting the rules, shows that Tamil literature was highly developed by the early centuries CE [1].
• This fits the political picture: the south lay outside Mauryan control and had its own kingdoms, courts and culture.

Related concepts

• Tamilakam
• Sangam age
• Sangam literature
• Tamil Sangams
• Tinai
• Ettuthokai
• Akananuru
• Purananuru
• Pattuppattu
• Kapilar

Read more

• Tamilakam and its sources