Akananuru
Topic: Sangam Age and Early South India · NCERT: Beyond NCERT
Meaning
The Akananuru is a Sangam anthology, or collection, of 400 Tamil poems. All its poems are akam poems, which means poems about love and inner feelings. Each poem is set in a tinai, a type of landscape such as hills, forest, seashore or dry land, and the landscape matches the mood of the love being described. It belongs to the Ettuthokai (the "Eight Anthologies"), which is part of the Sangam literature of c. 300 BCE – 300 CE. Many different poets wrote these poems. While describing love, the poems also mention towns, trade, farming and daily life, so historians use them as a source on Sangam society.
Example
The love poems in the Akananuru mention things like ports, merchants and journeys across dry land. This gives historians small but useful details about trade and travel in early Tamilakam, the ancient Tamil country.
Don't confuse with
- Purananuru: also has 400 poems and is also part of the Ettuthokai, but its poems are puram poems, about war, kings and public life, not love.
Related concepts
- Tamilakam
- Sangam age
- Sangam literature
- Tamil Sangams
- Akam and puram
- Tinai
- Ettuthokai
- Purananuru
- Pattuppattu
- Kapilar