Puṟanāṉūṟu: Text, Transliteration and Translations in English Verse and Prose

Puṟanāṉūṟu also referred to as Puṟam, Puṟappāṭṭu, and Purampu Nānūru by commentators like Naccinārkkiniyar is an anthology of 400 puṟam poems written by 156 poets. We know neither the poet who compiled it nor the patron-king who got it compiled. Two poems (267 and 268) have not been accounted for while some lines in 43 pieces are missing. Much more than any other anthology of the Caṅkam period, this one has served as a source of the political, social, and economic history of the Tamils, as its poems speak of the three major kings, the numerous minor ones, the chieftains and the philanthropists of the Tamil land and of their glorious deeds. The poems on the royal trinity appear first, the opening eighteen pieces celebrating them in the curious order of a Cēran, a Pāṇṭiyan and a Cōlan. These are followed by poems on the rulers of small kingdoms, some prominent leaders like Veḷirs and poems on war, grief caused by death, hero-stones, and self-immolation by women. Later such poems are interspersed with ones that teach aram to kings and others that may be brought under the categories of Guide poems for bards of war (Pāṇārruppaṭai), Guide poems for Viralis (Viraliārruppaṭai), and linked by tiṇai and turai. Since one of the manuscript versions of Puṟanāṉūṟu had at its beginning the title aranilai, Dr. U. V. Cāminātaiyar feels that the anthology might have been originally divided into three sections called aranilai, poruḷnilai and inpanilai.