- Naṟṟiṇai
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Narrinai (Tamil: நற்றிணை),a classical Tamil poetic work, is a book of Ettuthokai, a Sangam literature anthology. Natrinai contains 400 poems dealing with the five landscapes of Sangam poetry – kurinchi, mullai, marutham, neithal and paalai. This belongs to some of the oldest extant Tamil literature and is dated to belong to the Sangam age (100 BCE - 200 CE). The stanzas are of varying lengths of between nine and twelve lines each. The Pandya king Maaran Vazhuthi patronised this collection. It is not known who made this collection.
A number of authors including Perunthvanaar, who translated Mahabharatham into Tamil and Alankudi Vanganaar have written these poems. Authors of 56 poems are not known. The names of 192 authors are known. Poem 234 is missing and considered extinct. Part of the 385th poem is also missing from all available manuscript copies.
The original manuscript did not classify the poems into the various thinais (landscapes). They were introduced later in the nineteenth century when this book was first printed.
See also: Sangam landscapeReferences
- Mudaliyar, Singaravelu A., Apithana Cintamani, An encyclopaedia of Tamil Literature, (1931) - Reprinted by Asian Educational Services, New Delhi (1983)
Categories:- Tamil language
- Sangam literature
- Tamil stubs
- Indian literature stubs
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