Pattuppattu

Also called: Ten Idylls · Topic: Sangam Age and Early South India · NCERT: Beyond NCERT

Meaning

Pattuppattu ("Ten Idylls", or ten songs) is a Sangam collection of ten long poems. Together with Ettuttokai (the eight anthologies of shorter poems), it forms the main body of early Tamil poetry. It matters because several of its poems describe real kings, cities and ports in detail, such as Puhar under the Chola king Karikala, and Madurai under the Pandyas. This makes it one of the richest sources for the society and economy of early Tamilakam.

Explanation

Background: where Pattuppattu fits

• Sangam literature is the earliest Tamil literary tradition. It is the oldest literature of south India and is usually dated c. 300 BCE – 300 CE.
• Sangam comes from the Sanskrit sangha ("association"). Here it means an assembly of poets. Tradition places three such assemblies at Madurai [1].

• Britannica gives a narrower range of 1st–4th century CE for the surviving poems [1]. For the exam, keep the NCERT span.

• The surviving Sangam poems were later put together as two big collections:

• Ettuttokai: eight anthologies of mostly short poems [1].

• Pattuppattu: ten long poems, each standing on its own.

• Together these two are called the Eighteen Major Works (Patinenmelkanakku).

The ten poems and their types

• Arruppadai poems (guide poems). In these, a bard who got rich gifts from a patron tells a poor bard the road to that patron. There are five of them:
• Tirumurugarruppadai: a guide to the god Murugan. It is placed first in the collection. It is a religious poem, and many scholars think it is later than the rest.
• Porunararruppadai: praises the Chola king Karikala.
• Sirupanarruppadai
• Perumpanarruppadai

• Malaipadukadam: also called Kuttarruppadai.

• Poems on cities and kings:

• Maduraikkanchi: the longest poem in the collection. It describes Madurai under the Pandya king Nedunjeliyan, with its streets, markets and festivals.
• Pattinappalai: describes the Chola port of Puhar (Kaveripattinam) under Karikala. It shows ships, warehouses and goods coming in from many lands.

• Nedunalvadai

• Love poems:

• Mullaippattu
• Kurinjippattu: by the poet Kapilar.

Themes: akam and puram

• Sangam poems follow two themes:
• Akam (the "inner" world) means love.

• Puram (the "outer" world) means war, kings and public life [1].

• Pattuppattu contains both. Some poems mix them: a love story is used as a frame to describe a king's city or power. Pattinappalai is a good example.

• Long poems give space for detailed description. So the poems tell us much more about towns, trade and daily life than short lyric poems can.

Value as a source

• Pattuppattu tells us a lot about the economy.
• Pattinappalai shows Puhar as a busy sea port.
• Maduraikkanchi shows Madurai as a crowded market city.

• Together they show that early Tamilakam had towns, trade and rich kings, not only villages and chiefs.

• But the poems are praise-poetry. Poets wrote them for patrons who paid them. So historians check them against other evidence: Ashokan edicts, the Periplus, and excavation.

Time, place and evidence

• Period: the Sangam Age, c. 300 BCE – 300 CE (Britannica: 1st–4th century CE) [1]. Exact dates for each poem are uncertain. Tirumurugarruppadai is probably among the latest.
• Region: Tamilakam, which covered Tamil Nadu plus parts of Andhra Pradesh and Kerala.
• Dynasties and rulers named:
• Chola: the Kaveri valley (around modern Thanjavur) [1]; the king Karikala; the port Puhar.

• Pandya: Madurai [1]; the king Nedunjeliyan.

• Evidence that supports the poems:

• Ashoka's inscriptions name the Cholas (lower Kaveri valley) and the Pandyas (Tamraparni and Vaigai valleys) as peoples outside his empire. So these kingdoms are real and old, not just poetic inventions.
• The Periplus of the Erythraean Sea is an anonymous Greek merchant handbook from c. 40–70 CE. It names Tamil coastal ports such as Muziris, Korkai (Colchi), Poduca and Sopatma, and mentions trade in pepper and pearls [3][4]. This fits the busy port life shown in Pattinappalai.
• Keezhadi lies in the Vaigai basin, the Pandya heartland around Madurai. ASI says the site matters for understanding early urban settlement in the region [5][6]. This is physical evidence of the kind of town life that Maduraikkanchi describes in words.

Don't confuse with

• Ettuttokai: the eight anthologies of mostly short poems. Pattuppattu is ten long poems. Both together make up the Eighteen Major Works.
• Tirukkural: a single work on ethics by Tiruvalluvar. It belongs to the Eighteen Minor Works (Patinenkilkanakku), not to Pattuppattu.
• Silappadikaram and Manimekalai: these are the Tamil epics, each telling one long story. Pattuppattu is a collection of ten separate poems, not an epic. (Silappadikaram also opens at Puhar, so do not mix it up with Pattinappalai.)
• Tolkappiyam: a book of grammar and rhetoric [1], not a poetry collection.

Prelims Hooks

• Pattuppattu = Ten Idylls = ten long poems. Ettuttokai = eight anthologies. Both are Sangam collections.
• Pattinappalai describes Puhar (Kaveripattinam), the port of the Chola king Karikala.
• Maduraikkanchi describes Madurai under the Pandya king Nedunjeliyan. It is the longest poem in Pattuppattu.
• Tirumurugarruppadai is a poem on Murugan. It is the first poem of Pattuppattu.
• Arruppadai = "guide poem", in which one bard directs another bard to a generous patron. Five of the ten idylls are of this type.
• Trap: Tirukkural is not part of Pattuppattu or Ettuttokai. It belongs to the Eighteen Minor Works.

Mains Points

• Pattuppattu as a window on early urban life.
• Pattinappalai (Puhar) and Maduraikkanchi (Madurai) describe ports, markets and crowded streets.

• Read with the Periplus port list and the Keezhadi finds, they show that Tamilakam had real towns and Indian Ocean trade by the early centuries CE [4][5][6].

• Literature as history: its strengths and limits.

• The long poems give detail that short lyrics and inscriptions do not.
• But they were written to praise patrons like Karikala and Nedunjeliyan, so their claims about victories and wealth may be exaggerated.

• A good answer tests them against Ashokan edicts, the Periplus and excavation at sites such as Kodumanal, Adichchanallur and Keezhadi [2][4][5].

• Bards, gifts and chiefly power.

• Arruppadai poems show a system in which kings gave gifts to bards, and bards spread the kings' fame in return.
• This shows how Sangam rulers built their standing: by sharing wealth from farming, war and trade, not through a large paid officialdom.

Related concepts

• Tamilakam
• Sangam age
• Sangam literature
• Tamil Sangams
• Akam and puram
• Tinai
• Ettuthokai
• Akananuru
• Purananuru
• Kapilar

Read more

• Tamilakam and its sources