The four Dravidian languages Tamil, Telugu, Kannada and Malayalam developed their own scripts and literature. Out of these four, Tamil is the oldest and it belongs to early centuries of the Christian era. According to Tamil tradition, sages and poets of three literary fields or say three sangams used to gather and . recite their compositions. Their works contained themes like politics, war and love. As a result, the early classical Tamil literature is a group of three different types of works which includes
- ‘Ethutokoi’, (composition of 8 poems),
- the Tolkappiyam’ (Grammer) and
- the ‘Patthuppattu’ (The 10 songs). Each of these three works belonged to people of three different ‘sangams’ i.e. literary fields. The ‘Shilppadikaram’ and the ‘Manimekhalai are some of the most famous works of early Tamil literature.
Thiruvalluvar wrote the famous ‘Kurai’ which in verse deals with many aspects of life and religion.
