consists of poems of thirteen to twenty-one lines, the Naṛṛiṇai of poems of nine to twelve lines and the Kuṛuntokai of poems from four to eight lines. The Ainkuṛunuuṛu also consists of similar poems of three to six lines, but forms a separate anthology since it is divided into a hundred poems on each region. Though human emotions form the primary subject of these anthologies, it is the human emotions of a people who lived in intimate relationship and communion with Nature. The shorter the poem the more intense is its suggestiveness regarding Nature; the longer the poem the more detailed is the description of Nature, and the more explicit the avowal of the mutual influence between Man and Nature. While human passions in these poems are suggested in a few lines, it is the description of the landscapes and the natural setting appropriate to these passions which are described at length. Many of these poems are landscapes in verse. It looks as if the Tamil poets had a tradition of writing on the same theme verses of different length, for it is easy to trace an idea embodied in a couplet of Tiruvalluvar in an expanded form in a poem of Kuṛuntokai, and yet more diffuse in Neṭuntokai, and with minute and elaborate details in, say, Neṭunalvaaṭai.

There is, therefore, no dearth of material for a study on the poetic and philosophic interpretation of Nature in ancient Tamil poetry. The mediaeval commentators of Tolkaappiyam and the Cankam Classics have rendered this task easier by their illustrations and exegesis. To such names as Naccinaarkiniyar, and Ilampuuranar, and Parimeelalahar, must be added also the names of modern editors, the prince among whom is the late Dr. Swaminatha Iyer, whose introductions and apparatus criticus render great aid to the student engaged in Tamil research. The difficulty for the student is rather the embaras de choix. There is such an abundance of material that to select, collate and make the subject presentable and readable to those whose acquaintance with Tamil literature is scant, is not a light task. The flora and fauna, the very hills and localities mentioned in Cankam literature have yet to be explored and identified. Literary criticism of Tamil poetry is a new field of study, for histories of Tamil literature have until recently been preoccupied with disputes regarding chronology, and.