Tamil literature
The early Sangam literature, dated before 300 BCE, contain anthologies of various poets dealing with many aspects of life, including love, war, social values and religion.
During the medieval era some of the grandest of Tamil literary classics like Kambaramayanam and Periya Puranam were authored and many poets were patronized by the imperial Chola and Pandya empires.
[citation needed] A revival of Tamil literature took place from the late 19th century when works of religious and philosophical nature were written in a style that made it easier for the common people to enjoy.
The modern Tamil literary movement started with Subramania Bharathi, the multifaceted Indian nationalist poet and author, and was quickly followed up by many who began to utilize the power of literature in influencing the masses.
Tamil legends hold that these were composed in three successive poetic assemblies (Sangam) that were held in ancient times on a now vanished continent far to the south of India.
The greatness of the Sangam age poetry may be ascribed not so much to its antiquity, but due to the fact that their ancestors were indulging in literary pursuits and logical classification of the habitats and society in a systematic manner with little to draw from precedents domestically or elsewhere.
The fact that these classifications were documented at a very early date in the grammatical treatise Tolkappiyam, demonstrates the organized manner in which the Tamil language has evolved.
Tolkappiyam is not merely a textbook on Tamil grammar giving the inflection and syntax of words and sentences but also includes classification of habitats, animals, plants and human beings.
The images associated with these landscapes – birds, beasts, flowers, gods, music, people, weather, seasons – were used to subtly convey a mood, associated with an aspect of life.
Sangam literature (200 BCE to 500 CE) mentions Mayon or the "dark one", as the supreme deity who creates, sustains, and destroys the universe and was worshipped in the Plains and mountains of Tamilakam.The earliest verses of Paripadal describe the glory of Perumal in the most poetic of terms.
To Tirumal (Maha Vishnu): தீயினுள் தெறல் நீ; பூவினுள் நாற்றம் நீ; கல்லினுள் மணியும் நீ; சொல்லினுள் வாய்மை நீ; அறத்தினுள் அன்பு நீ; மறத்தினுள் மைந்து நீ; வேதத்து மறை நீ; பூதத்து முதலும் நீ; வெஞ் சுடர் ஒளியும் நீ; திங்களுள் அளியும் நீ; அனைத்தும் நீ; அனைத்தின் உட்பொருளும் நீ; In fire, you are the heat; in blossoms, the fragrance; among the stones, you are the diamond; in speech, truth; among virtues, you are love; in valour—strength; in the Veda, you are the secret; among elements, the primordial; in the burning sun, the light; in moonshine, its sweetness; you are all, and you are the substance and meaning of all.
To Seyyon (Skandha): We pray you not for wealth, not for gold, not for pleasure; But for your grace, for love, for virtue, these three, O god with the rich garland of kaṭampu flowers with rolling clusters!
The period between the 11th and the 13th centuries, during which the Chola power was at its peak, there were relatively few foreign incursions and the life for the Tamil people was one of peace and prosperity.
It also provided the opportunity for the people to interact with cultures beyond their own, as the Cholas ruled over most of the South India, Sri Lanka and traded with the kingdoms in southeast Asia.
Other grammatical works of this period are Nannul by Pavanandi, Vaccanandi Malai by Neminatha, and the annotations on the puram theme, Purapporul Venpamalai by Aiyanaridanar.
Although the kings and the governors of the Vijayanagar empire spoke Kannada and Telugu they encouraged the growth of Tamil literature as we find no slowing down in the literary output during this period.
His most famous work is the Nandan Charitam on the life of Nandanar who, having been born in a sociologically lower caste, faces and overcomes the social obstacles in achieving his dream of visiting the Chidambaram temple.
Although it was primarily a powerful narration of the common man's life in a realistic style spiced with natural humour, Rajam Iyer's novel has a spiritual and philosophical undertone.
Madhaviah tells the story in a more realistic way with a searching criticism of the upper caste society, particularly the sexual exploitation of girls by older men.
Since the 1990s the post-modernist writers emerged as a major figures, including Jeyamohan, S.Ramakrishnan, Charu Nivedita,[21] and Konangi, who mixes classical Tamil inflections with experimental sound poets.
In the 1950s and 1960s, Tamilvanan's detective hero Shankarlal carried readers to a variety of foreign locales, while using a pure Tamil with very few Hindi or English loan words.
Though sales of Tamil pulp fiction have declined since the hey-day of the mid-1990s, and many writers have turned to the more lucrative television serial market, there remains a thriving scene.
The rise of the Internet has triggered a dramatic growth in the number of Tamil blogs and specialist portals catering to political and social issues.
The 'new poetry or pudukkavithai pioneered by Bharathi in his prose-poetry was further developed by the literary periodicals manikkodi and ezhuttu (edited by Si Su Chellappa).
Tamil Muslim poets like Kavikko Abdul Rahman, Pavalar Inqulab, Manushyaputhiran and Rajathi Salma too have made significant contributions to social reforms.
The first regular newspaper in Tamil was Swadesamitran in 1882, started by G.Subramaniya Iyer, editor and sponsor of The Hindu and founding member of the Indian National Congress.
The next year, when Lala Lajpat Rai was arrested and agitation followed in the Punjab, Subramania Aiyer's attitude to the British changed and he became a trenchant political critic of the Raj.
Its forceful and colloquial style gained it a wide readership but after the paper failed to take sides with the 1930 Civil Disobedience Movement, the Congress Party decided to bring out a new Tamil daily – India, edited by renowned poet Subramania Bharati.
The name Kalki denotes the impending tenth Avatar of Lord Vishnu in the Hindu religion, who it is said, will bring to an end the Kali Yuga and reinstate Dharma or righteousness among the worldly beings.
Thanthi used the public bus system to distribute the paper throughout the south Tamil region and capitalized on the hunger for war news that arose after Singapore fell to the Japanese.
