Kuṟiñcippāṭṭu
Kuṟiñcippāṭṭu (, lit. "the song of the mountains"), also called the Kurinchipattu or Perumkurinchi, is an ancient Tamil poem in the Sangam literature genre. It is a story about premarital love. Authored by Kapilar, it is the eighth poem in the Pattuppāṭṭu anthology. The poem is generally dated to the classical period (2nd- to 3rd-century CE). The Kurincippattu poem has 261 lines in akaval meter. It has 1,440 words, of which at least 19 are Sanskrit loan words. The underlying story is about a hill-tribe chieftain who sees a girl and falls in love at first sight. She falls for him too. Her foster-sister senses what is going on, and she arranges them to meet to enjoy each other in "beautiful groves of the forest". Overwhelmed by the experience of first love, her behavior at home changes. Her parents see the strangeness and suspect something is going on. They do not guess there is a lover involved but presume possession by spirits. They invite exorcists to treat their daughter. Her foster-sister intervenes and tells them the entire story, along with how the young man saved her life twice recently, once from drowning and another from a charging elephant. The parents