The Colas c34.8

c34.8

In its present form the poem contains 3,145 stanzas, of four lines each. It is said that the author actually composed only 2,700 stanzas, the remaining 445 being later additions by his *guru*, with whose permission he wrote the poem, and by another hand.¹³ The annotator has marked out two verses as those of the *guru*, but there is no means of identifying the additions of the other writer mentioned above, if there were such additions. The art of Tiruttakkadēvar is marked by all the qualities of great poetry and has, as is well-known, furnished the model for even the genius of Kamban. We shall see that it also inspired, though indirectly, the composition of the *Periya-Purāṇam*.