"guide for war bards") is an ancient Tamil poem and the second lay of the Pattuppattu anthology in the Sangam literature.
[2] It is one of five arruppatai genre poems, possibly the oldest one, aimed as a guide to other bards seeking a patron for their art.
The poet compares, for example, her small feet to "tongue of a panting hound", her mound-of-venus to "seat of bees", her navel to "water ripple", her earlobes to "well-shaped loops of scissors".
[2] According to Chelliah, this poem suggests that the 2nd-century Tamil society ate meat, and the shift to vegetarian lifestyle happened in later centuries.
[10] The god of war Murugan, a goddess possibly Kali Kankalan, along with the ceremonial ancestral offering of red rice to crows (shraddha) are mentioned in the poem.