புறநானூறு

Puṟanāṉūṟu — The Four Hundred

Sangam Anthology · c. 300 BCE – 300 CE

The Puṟanāṉūṟu (புற = exterior/public + நானூறு = four hundred) is the great anthology of puṟam poetry from the Sangam age — four hundred poems composed by some hundred and fifty different poets across centuries.

Where akam poems sing the inward life of love and longing, puṟam poems turn outward — to kings and warfare, generosity and the ethics of governance, the lament for fallen heroes, the praise of patrons, and the impermanence of all human glory. Together they preserve a portrait of the early Tamil world that no other source can supply.

Each poem is presented here in full: the original Tamil, romanized transliteration, English translation, Tamil prose commentary (உரை), an alternative English rendering, plus the poet's name, the patron addressed, the poetic situation (turai), the landscape mode (thinai), and a historical note.