Sangam literature

Also called: Sangam texts · Topic: Sangam Age and Early South India · NCERT: Class 7, Ch 4 "New Beginnings: Cities and States"; Class 7, Ch 6 "The Age of Reorganisation"; Class 9, Ch 5 "State and Society up to 1000 CE"; Class 12, Ch 2 "Kings, Farmers and Towns"; Class 12, Ch 3 "Kinship, Caste and Class - Early Societies"

Meaning

Sangam literature is the earliest body of Tamil poetry. These poems were collected into anthologies (collections) and are dated c. 300 BCE – 300 CE. According to tradition, they were produced in assemblies of poets (sangams) at Madurai [2].

• It is the oldest literature of south India.
• It is the main written source on the chiefs, society and economy of early Tamilakam (the ancient Tamil country).

Explanation

Background: where the name and the tradition come from

• The word sangam comes from the Sanskrit sangha. It means "association" or "coming together". Here it means an assembly of poets [2].
• Tradition says the poems came out of three literary academies (sangams) at Madurai [2].
• The poems belong to Tamilakam. This was a larger region than today's Tamil Nadu. It also took in parts of present-day Andhra Pradesh and Kerala.
• Tamilakam held many chiefdoms and kingdoms at the same time. The three big houses were the Chera, Chola and Pandya [2].

• The Pandyas were based at Madurai, the traditional home of the sangams. They are praised in the earliest Tamil poetry [2].

• These kingdoms stayed outside Mauryan control. So the poems show a southern world with its own rulers and its own culture.

Main features: form and themes

• Form: the poems are grouped into anthologies (collections of poems by many poets).
• Ettuttokai means the eight anthologies of poetry. It is part of the Sangam compilation, along with the grammar text [2].
• The poems fall under two themes:
• Akam (the "inner" theme): love.
• Puram (the "outer" theme): war and public life, including praise of kings and their deeds.

• The split is built into the collections. Love fills the first five collections and heroism fills the next two [2].

• Purananuru is a well-known puram anthology. Its poems praise chiefs and describe how they gave gifts to bards and poets.

Key works to remember

• Tolkappiyam: the grammar text. Britannica calls it a book of grammar and rhetoric (the art of using words well) [2].
• Tirukkural: written by Tiruvalluvar. It deals with ethics and right conduct.
• Silappadikaram and Manimekalai: the two Tamil epics (long story-poems).

What the poems tell us

• Beyond love and war, the poems give information on political organisation, social structures and economic activities. They are written "with great skill and delicacy".
• Chiefs and bards:
• The poems are full of chiefs who collected wealth and then shared it out as gifts.

• Bards and poets sang their praises in return.

• Social categories (NCERT, Class 12):

• vellalar: large landowners.
• uzhavar: ploughmen.
• adimai: slaves.

• So land and labour were already divided unequally.

• Trade and wealth: the poems fit the wider picture of a rich coast. There were pearls from the Pandya coast, pepper from the Malabar side, and busy ports [5].

Time, place and evidence

• Period: c. 300 BCE – 300 CE, according to NCERT.
• Britannica places the surviving poems in the 1st to 4th century CE [2].

• Use the NCERT dates in the exam [2].

• Place: Tamilakam, under the Chera (Malabar Coast), Chola (Thanjavur and the Kaveri valley) and Pandya (Madurai) houses [2].

• Before the poems: the megaliths. From the first millennium BCE, megalithic burials (large stone structures for the dead) appear across central and south India. They are full of iron tools and weapons. They come before the Sangam chiefs.
• Checking the poems against other evidence. The poems are praise-poetry written for patrons, so historians test them against other kinds of evidence:
• Ashoka's inscriptions name southern peoples outside his empire:
  • Cholas: lower Kaveri valley.
  • Pandyas: Tamraparni and Vaigai valleys.
  • Keralaputras: identified with the Cheras.
  • Satiyaputras: northern Tamil Nadu.
• Kharavela's inscription claims hundreds of pearls from the Pandya kingdom. But there is no sign that he actually invaded the south.
• Megasthenes: a Greek account written at the Mauryan court.
• Periplus of the Erythraean Sea: an anonymous Greek merchant handbook (a guide written for traders), c. 40–70 CE. It names Muziris (Cranganore), Colchi (Korkai), Poduca and Sopatma [4][5].
• Excavations:
  • Kodumanal.
  • Adichchanallur, an urn burial site on the Tambraparani river, found by Jagor in 1876. Its finds include gold diadems (headbands), bronzes and iron tools [3].
  • Keezhadi, in the Vaigai basin. ASI dug there in 2014-15 to 2016-17. The Tamil Nadu State Department of Archaeology has run the digging since 2018 [6]. ASI says the site helps us understand early urban settlement in the region [7].

Don't confuse with

• Sangam vs Buddhist *sangha: both words come from the same root. But a sangam here is an assembly of Tamil poets at Madurai*, not a community of monks [2].
• Akam vs Puram: akam = love (the first five collections). Puram = war and public life (the next two) [2].
• Tolkappiyam vs Tirukkural: Tolkappiyam is the grammar [2]. Tirukkural is the ethics text by Tiruvalluvar.
• Tamilakam vs Tamil Nadu: Tamilakam was Tamil Nadu plus parts of Andhra Pradesh and Kerala, and it held many kingdoms at once.

Prelims Hooks

• Sangam comes from Sanskrit sangha ("association"). It means an assembly of poets, traditionally at Madurai [2].
• Ettuttokai = the eight anthologies. Akam = love. Puram = war and public life [2].
• Tolkappiyam = grammar. Tirukkural = Tiruvalluvar. Silappadikaram and Manimekalai = the Tamil epics.
• NCERT dates Sangam literature to c. 300 BCE – 300 CE. Britannica gives a narrower 1st–4th century CE [2].
• The Periplus (c. 40–70 CE) names Muziris, Korkai (Colchi), Poduca, Sopatma. It is a Greek source used to cross-check the poems [4][5].
• Trap: Keezhadi is in the Vaigai basin, not on the Tambraparani. Adichchanallur is the site on the Tambraparani [3][6].

Mains Points

• Literature as history: its power and its limits.
• Sangam poems are the main window on chiefs, society and economy in early Tamilakam. There is no state archive and no long king-list.

• But they are praise-poetry written for patrons. A good answer reads them alongside Ashokan edicts, Megasthenes, the Periplus and the digs at Kodumanal, Adichchanallur and Keezhadi. This tests literary claims against dated, outside and material evidence [3][5][6].

• From megaliths to chiefs who gave gifts.

• Iron-rich megalithic burials of the first millennium BCE came first.
• Iron tools helped farmers grow more food than they needed in the river valleys.
• This surplus let chiefs collect wealth and share it out, as the poems describe.

• Adichchanallur's gold diadems and bronzes show that some people were already richer than others [3].

• A southern culture with its own voice.

• The poems, along with Ashoka's naming of the Cholas, Pandyas, Keralaputras and Satiyaputras, show that south India had its own political units and its own literary tradition.
• Its trade in pearls, pepper and goods through its ports linked it to Roman and Indian Ocean commerce [2][5].

Related concepts

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

Read more

• Tamilakam and its sources