The history of Malayalam poetry dates back to the 12th century; the earliest poetic work in a near-Malayalam language, or what might be a mixture of Tamil and Malayalam, is the Rama Charitam.
It is said that Kannassan poets are Madhava Panikkar, Sankara Panikkar and Rama Panikkar[3] There are two types of meters used in Malayalam poetry, also known as Kavita: the classical Sanskrit-based and Tamil-based ones.
Sanskrit meters are primarily based on trisyllabic feet.
For easy specification of meters, the laghu's and guru's are grouped into feet (called ganam) as follows: Additionally, individual gurus are also identified by 'ga' or 'gam' and laghus by 'la' or 'lam'.
For example, the definition for the meter 'Kalyani' is 'three thaganam + two gurus' indicating "- - ⌣ - - ⌣ - - ⌣ - -".