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seem to have been the earlier batch, all facts and traditions considered. These heretical sects finding in the Tamil land no Brahmanic religion on any scale to oppose had to contend themselves with the composition of works mostly ethical and literary. The Tamils too seem to have taken themselves readily to this impulse which ran in the direction of their national bent, and the second period accordingly was throughout ethical and literary in substance and tone and seems to have been ushered in by the writing of such works as the Kural, Tolkäppiyam, etc. The Hindu Aryans were the last to come, and with their arrival was opened quite a new channel of national activity into which the whole of Dravidian life and thought have flowed since."
A. CHAKRAVARTI:
We cannot talk of Tamil literature without reference to what is known as the 3 Sangams. Tamil literature, especially the latter one, refers to the 3 Sangams or Academies under whose guidance Tamil literature was cultivated. The story of the Sangam is shrouded in a good deal of mythology. In the earlier works supposed to be Sangam literature the several collections such as the 8 collections, the 10 idylls etc., there is no reference to Sangam literature." The modern oriental scholars rightly conclude that the
1 V.R. Ramachandra Dikshitar: Studies in Tamil Literature and History (1930), pp. 15-19; K. N. Sivaraja Pillai op.cit., pp. 19-20; U. V. Swaminatha Iyer: Sangattamilum Pirkalattamiļum (1934), pp. 18-20; M. Rajamanikkanar: Tamilmoļi Ilakkiya Varalaru (1963), pp. 35-42.
2 K. N. Sivaraja Pillai : op. cit., pp. 25.
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