works of the post-Tholkappiyam period, a proper understanding of them requires a basic knowledge of the third part of this great work of grammar.

There are references here and there in the great commentaries of Sangam literature to other grammatical works called Agatthiyam, Pannirupadalam, Avinayam. Kakkaipadiniyam, Natrattham, etc. The former of these is said to have been written by Agatthiyanar. There are many legends associated with this author and others of the three Sangams or Academies of Tamil literature.

II. Characteristics of Classical Poetry

The following reading is taken from an article by X. S. THANI NAYAGAM, entitled "Ancient Tamil Poetry", published in the Eastern Horizon, Hong Kong, Nos. 7 and 8, 1966.

ONE OF THE elements which makes classical Tamil literature such good poetry as well as valuable in the understanding of ancient India is its secular and humanistic inspiration. Here we have poetry which is not ritualistic; here we have poets who are concerned with the passions and emotions of ordinary men and women, not only of kings and queens and the élite groups of society. Here we have bards and poets who have no priestly functions to perform, but nevertheless are the counsellors of kings and the moral leaders of society. A predominantly secular and humanistic literature such as this in a country in which religion and religious literature have dominated society from the dawn of literary history is worth study not only by students of literature, but also by students of history and of culture. . . .

It is worthwhile noting that the chronological period covered by this literature approximates the age when the Sanskrit epics were receiving their final versions in northern India and the Mauryan Empire was producing its work in stone, when the Buddhist sermons were being redacted into the Buddhist canon, when the Chou period was flourishing in China, and Latin literature was having its golden and silver ages. Cicero, Senecca. Virgil, Catullus, Juvenal were contemporaries of the Tamil poets.

The entire tradition of Tamil poesy refers to this period of classical Tamil poetry now extant as the output of a third epoch, preceded by two other epochs of much longer duration and of a great amount of poesy. The first epoch is supposed to have lasted for 4,440 years and counted 4,449 poets; the second epoch is said to have lasted for 3,700 years and counted 3,700 poets, and the third, which produced