[6] Upon reaching the Madurai College, Tiruvalluvar submitted his text, calling it Muppāl,[7] before Somasundara, in the hearing of the Pandyan king and his ministers, chiefs, and scholars.
[6] Legend has it that forty-nine professors "sat as kings of the sweet tongue" on the bench of poets, known as Sanga palagai, by the tank covered with the golden lotus at the Madurai temple.
[8] The assembly of scholars said to have doubted Tiruvalluvar's erudition and said to him that the bench on which they sat will make room for the best treatise in high Tamil, which shall be taken as a sign of acceptance of his work.
[8][9][11] When Tiruvalluvar laid his book thereupon, the seat immediately contracted itself to the size of the work throwing all the professors into the lotus pond.
With four more verses adding to the corpus, including that by divine elements such as the voices of the Oracle, Namagal (Saraswati), and Iraiyanar (Shiva), the collection came to be known as the Tiruvalluva Malai or "the garland to Tiruvalluvar".
[15] Tiruvalluva Malai is a collection of verses said to have been composed by gods, goddesses, and poets of different times, all belonging to the legendary Tamil Sangam at Madurai.