Patiṟṟuppattu

The Patiṟṟuppattu (பதிற்றுப்பத்து, പതിറ്റുപ്പത്ത്, lit. Ten Tens, sometimes spelled Pathitrupathu,) is a classical Tamil poetic work and one of the Eight Anthologies (Ettuthokai) in Sangam literature. A panegyric collection, it contains puram (war and public life) poems. The Chera kings, known as the Cheramal, are the centre of the work. Its invocatory poem is about Maayon, or Perumal (deity) (Vishnu). The Patiṟṟuppattu originally contained ten sections of ten poems, each section dedicated to a decade of rule in ancient Kerala (Cerals, Chera); the first and last sections have been lost. Of the surviving poems, the second-to-sixth-decade-related poems are about the three generations of rulers from the Imayavaramban dynasty. The remaining poems are about the three generations of rulers from the Irumporai dynasty. In the Patirruppattu palm-leaf manuscripts, each decade ends with a (a verse epilogue followed by a prose colophon. According to U. V. Swaminatha Iyer (who rediscovered the Sangam manuscripts), a commentary was written in or after the 13th century. The Patiṟṟuppattu was written by several male poets and one female poet, indicating that women could play a scholarly role in ancient South India. The poems praise rulers and heroes in Hagiographical form, with a core seemingly rooted in history. They mention the Hindu deities Vishnu, Shiva, Murugan and Korravai (Uma, Durga), and their worship by warriors and the king. The poems, epilogues, and colophons are significant in studies of ancient culture and sociology. The poetry probably relies on older oral traditions shared by post-Sangam Tamil epics. Czech scholar Kamil Zvelebil wrote that the Patirruppattu was probably composed over a period of time: the first layer sometime between the 2nd and 4th centuries CE, and the second layer between the 3rd and 5th centuries. Its poems and are of significant historical importance. According to T. P. Meenakshisundaram, the Patiṟṟuppattu is the "only available book of ancient Chera history".