descriptions of the hill country, of the dawn and the setting in of evening, and of the close life of the people with Nature, occur-in Malaipaṭukaṭaam, and Kapilar’s famous Kuṛiicippaaṭṭu. Few passages can rival the description of the North Wind and its effects, and the interplay of human emotions and sentiments as found in Neṭunalvaaṭai.The conventional regions of the Cooḷa and Paaṇṭiya kingdoms, the Kaaveeri and Vaiyai which water them, and regional fusion (tiṇai mayakkam) are faithfully portrayed in the other poems which are intentionally panegyric. The greatness of a sovereign was assessed also by the fertility and the diversity of regions found within his kingdom and, therefore, descriptions of the landscapes of the territory of a sovereign often form an integral part of laudatory and heroic verse.

The Eight Anthologies are classified again, according to the subjects treated, namely, into Akam and Puṛam.This is a fundamental division in Tamil poetry, and is made on the basis of” psychological and psychic experience. Akam is a word denoting “interior” as opposed to Puṛam which means the “exterior”. Under Akam poetry comes what is supposed to be the most internal, personal, and directly incommunicable human experience, and that is love and all its emotional phases. All that does not come under this internal and interior experience is classed as Puṛam.While love poetry is Akam, all the other poetry, elegiac, panegyric and heroic is Puṛam. In Puṛam poetry, the study of Nature is mainly objective and consists in similes and metaphors, whereas in Akam poetry Nature is the background and sympathetic stage for the emotional and aesthetic aspects of love. There is in Tamil love poetry much of the sympathetic interpretation of Nature whereby Nature is brought into relationship with man, furnishing lessons and analogies to human conduct and human aspirations, and expressing itself in sympathy with or in antagonism to the lives of men. The Puṛanaanuuṛu,and the Patiṛṛuppattu which belong to the Puṛam category do not entertain certain elements of the interpretation of Nature, which, on the other hand, are considered to be vital to the Kali odes, the Ainkuṛunuuṛu,the Kuṛuntokai,the Naṛṛiṇai,and the Neṭuntokai or Akanaanuuṛu.