Page:Introduction to Tamil Poetry.pdf/5

 4 and anıbassadors were sent and the ways in which wealthy people made gifts to the learned and the needy. There are plenty of references to the impartial way in which the kings of the time ruled their respective parts of the coun- try. The collections in the Ețțutokai series are mainly concerned with courtship, elopement, marriage with or without approval of the parents, wedded life, marital estrangements, reconciliation, happiness and joy. Each one of the poems in these collections looks like a short story in verse form. The terseness with which the inci- dents have been narrated and the hidden meanings and suggestiveness of words occurring in these poems deserve pecial notice. Ārrupadai is a type of poem by which, generally speak- ing needy persons would be told how they could approach a generous and beneficent lord and how the speaker him- self had enjoyed the hospitality of that lord. This type therefore lent itself freely to a narration of the achieve- ments of the king concerned, chieftain or a wealthy person or God. These poems have a special interest for those that want to study the topography of the Tamil country. In every one of these poems the regions of the jungle, mountain, fields and the sea are vividly described, together with the occupations and avocations and pastimes of the different sections of the population inhabiting those regions. Mullaipățțu contains special descriptions of the forest region and gives a masterly and vivid picture of a woman, separated from her lover, bearing the burden of separation with fortitude. Kurinjipāțţu contains a beauti- ful description of the region of the hills and is noted for the marvellous way in which it has described the fora of that region. This poem gives an inkling of the traditional way in which a lover makes love to his beloved and gains her. Maduraikānji bears witness to the happy way in which people were spending their life by day and by night in Madurai, the capital city of the Pandyas. Pattina- pālai also contains similar descriptions pertaining to