Purananuru

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 poetess. 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. While 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 Pandyan 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 that suggest the ancient Tamil society interacted with other parts of the Indian subcontinent. Examples include references to the Himalaya of "immeasurable heights", Shiva, Vishnu, four Vedas, Ramayana, rivers and other aspects.
Anthology.
Among the eight Sangam anthologies, "Purananuru" and "Pathitrupathu" are concerned with life outside family - kings, wars, greatness, generosity, ethics and philosophy. While "Pathitrupathu" is limited to the glory of Chera kings in 108 verses, "Purananuru" contains an assortment of themes in three hundred ninety seven poems. Of the original 400 poems, two have been lost, and some poems miss several lines.
Structure and content.
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.
Subject matter.
The "Purananuru" poems deal with the "puram" aspect of the Sangam literature, that is war, politics and public life. Many poems praise kings and chieftains. Some of the poems are in the form of elegies in tribute to a fallen hero. These poems exhibit outpourings of affection and emotions. "Purananuru" is notable for three features: the king and his believed powers over the climate and environment (rains, sunshine, successful crops), the ancient Tamil belief in the power of women's purity, namely "karpu" (chastity), and the ancient system of caste (kuti, kudi) that existed in Tamil kingdoms independent of any Indo-Aryan influence from north India.
According to Hart and Heifetz, the "Purananuru" content is organized in the following way (poem sequence number in brackets):
Authors.
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.
Structure.
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.
Landscapes.
Just as the "akam" (subjective) poems are classified into seven "thinais" or landscapes based on the mood of the poem, the Tamil prosodical tradition mentioned in the ancient Tamil grammatical treatise "Tolkappiyam" also classifies "puram" (objective) poems into seven "thinais" based on the subject of the poems. These are "vetchi," when the king provokes war by attacking and stealing the cattle of his enemy; "vanchi," when the king invades the enemy territory; "uzhingai," when the king lays a siege of the enemy's fortress; "thumbai," when the two armies meet on a battlefield; "vaakai," when the king is victorious; "paataan," when the poet praises the king on his victory; and "kanchi," when the poet sings on the fragility of human life.
The "Purananuru" does not, however, follow this system. The colophons accompanying each poem name a total of eleven thinais. From the subject matter of the poems they accompany, each can be said to represent the following themes:
The Kaikkilai and Perunthinai are traditionally associated with "akam" poetry. In Purananuru, they occur in the context of the familiar "puram" landscape of warfare. Thus songs 83, 84 and 85 are classified to belong to the "kaikkilai" "thinai", which denotes unrequited love, and describe a noblewoman's love for King Cholan Poravai Kopperunarkilli. Similarly, songs 143 to 147 are classified as "perunthinai" or "perunkilai thinai", which denotes unsuitable love, and deal with King Pekan's abandonment of his wife.
"Pothuviyal" is described in commentaries as a general "thinai" used for poems that cannot be classified in any other manner but, in the context of "Purananuru", is used almost exclusively for didactic verse and elegies or laments for dead heroes.
Realism.
"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.
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.
Historical source.
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.
Ramayana Reference.
The earliest reference to the story of the 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. This seems to indicate that the story of the Ramayana was familiar in the Tamil lands before the Kamba Ramayanam of the 12th century CE.
Publishing in modern times.
U. V. Swaminatha Iyer (1855-1942 CE) resurrected the first three epics and Sangam literature from the appalling neglect and wanton destruction of centuries. 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. Being the first time, Swaminatha Iyer had to face many difficulties in terms of interpreting, finding the missing leaves, textual errors and unfamiliar terms. He went on tiring journeys to remote villages in search of the missing manuscripts. After years of toil, he published "Civaka Cintamani" in book form in 1887 CE, followed by "Silappatikaram" in 1892 CE and "Purananuru" in 1894 CE. Along with the text, he added abundant commentary and explanatory notes of terms, textual variations and approaches to explaining the context.
Samples.
யாதும் ஊரே; யாவரும் கேளிர்;
தீதும் நன்றும் பிறர் தர வாரா; 
நோதலும் தணிதலும் அவற்றோரன்ன; 
சாதலும் புதுவது அன்றே; வாழ்தல் 
இனிது என மகிழ்ந்தன்றும் இலமே; முனிவின், 
இன்னாது என்றலும் இலமே; 'மின்னொடு 
வானம் தண் துளி தலை இ, ஆனாது 
கல் பொருது இரங்கும் மல்லல் பேர் யாற்று 
நீர் வழிப்படூஉம் புணை போல், ஆர் உயிர் 
முறை வழிப்படூஉம்' என்பது திறவோர் 
காட்சியின் தெளிந்தனம் ஆகலின், மாட்சியின் 
பெரியோரை வியத்தலும் இலமே; 
சிறியோரை இகழ்தல் அதனினும் இலமே.
"கணியன் பூங்குன்றன், புறநானூறு, 192"
The Sages
To us all towns are one, all men our kin, 
Life's good comes not from others' gifts, nor ill, 
Man's pains and pain's relief are from within, 
Death's no new thing, nor do our bosoms thrill
When joyous life seems like a luscious draught. 
When grieved, we patient suffer; for, we deem
This much-praised life of ours a fragile raft
Borne down the waters of some mountain stream
That o'er huge boulders roaring seeks the plain
Tho' storms with lightning's flash from darkened skies. 
Descend, the raft goes on as fates ordain. 
Thus have we seen in visions of the wise ! 
We marvel not at the greatness of the great; 
Still less despise we men of low estate.
"Kaniyan Pungundranar, Purananuru, 192"
இனி நினைந்து இரக்கம் ஆகின்று: திணி மணல் 
செய்வுறு பாவைக்குக் கொய் பூத் தைஇ, 
தண் கயம் ஆடும் மகளிரொடு கை பிணைந்து,
தழுவுவழித் தழீஇ, தூங்குவழித் தூங்கி, 
மறை எனல் அறியா மாயம் இல் ஆயமொடு
உயர் சினை மருதத் துறை உறத் தாழ்ந்து, 
நீர் நணிப் படி கோடு ஏறி, சீர் மிக,
கரையவர் மருள, திரைஅகம் பிதிர,
நெடு நீர்க் குட்டத்துத் துடுமெனப் பாய்ந்து,
குளித்து மணல் கொண்ட கல்லா இளமை
அளிதோதானே! யாண்டு உண்டு கொல்லோ
தொடித் தலை விழுத் தண்டு ஊன்றி, நடுக்குற்று,
இரும் இடை மிடைந்த சில சொல்
பெரு மூதாளரேம் ஆகிய எமக்கே?
"தொடித்தலை விழுத்தண்டினார், புறநானூறு, 243"
The Instability of Youth
"I muse of YOUTH! the tender sadness still 
returns! In sport I moulded shapes of river sand, 
plucked flowers to wreathe around the mimic forms: 
in the cool tank I bathed, hand linked in hand, 
with little maidens, dancing as they danced! 
A band of innocents, we knew no guile. 
I plunged beneath th' o'erspreading myrtle's shade, 
where trees that wafted fragrance lined the shore; 
then I climbed the branch that overhung the stream 
while those upon the bank stood wondering; 
I threw the waters round, and headlong plunged 
dived deep beneath the stream, and rose, 
my hands filled with the sand that lay beneath! 
Such was my youth unlesson'd. 'Tis too sad! 
Those days of youth, ah! whither have they fled? 
I now with trembling hands, grasping my staff, 
panting for breath, gasp few and feeble words. 
And I am worn and OLD!"
"Thodithalai Vizhuthandinar, Purananuru, 243"