Studies in Cola History and Administration c7.36

c7.36

The question of the internal chronology of the literature of early Tamil has unfortunately not received as much attention as it deserves. But there seems to be no reason to doubt either the priority of much of the *Puranānūru* to the poems preserved in the other anthologies and to the twin epics the *Śilappadikāram* and the *Maṇimēkalai*, or the claim registered in the colophons to most of these poems that they were contemporary compositions of poets dealing with particular situations to which they were eye-witnesses. There is nothing of the conventional about these poems, each of which is a living realistic picture of a genuine human situation. It seems to me that in these poems we have some of the most genuine records of exceptional interest to the historian of Southern India; and these must be treated as a class apart. Hence the poems of the *Puranānūru* bearing on the subject of this study have been placed in the first group. For the rest, I have sought to group the sources, not strictly in their chronological order—we know yet so little of this—but in the order of their importance and trustworthiness. An attempt has been made throughout to keep clear the distinction between data furnished by the originals and by the glosses on them by latter-day commentators.