4 Let us now look into the foundations of these love poems. They are nothing but the fundamental factors of geography, because the whole of Sangam poetry is based on a five-fold division of land, namely, Kuriñci, Mullai, Pālai, Marutam and Neytal which mean respectively the montane or mountainous, the pastoral or forest, the arid or the desert, the riverine or agricultural and the littoral or coastal regions. Of these five, the old Tamils did not recognise Pālai (the arid or the desert) as a seperate entity, since it is only the result of the reduciion of both mountainous and forest or pastoral region. These five regions are deliberately sung as 'ulakam' (world) itself repeatedly by Tolkāppiyar perhaps to impress the truth that these major divisions are applicable not only to Tamilnādu but the whole of the earth to a very great extent. Tolkāppiyar might have also meant that each of these five regions is as compact as a world in itself. Here it is interesting to note that the compound word “Nāzilam” (Wā(l) + JWilam = four fold land) means all the world even now in spoken Tamil. The classification of land into these five regions is so important, since the ancient Tamils conceived of ideal love (ambit, aintinai – fivefold regional character of love) itself as akin to these divisions of land. According to the Tamils of the classical age, it is nothing but the geography of the land that primarily influenced the life, especially, the love-life of the people. The impact of this five-fold classification of land on Sangam poetry, particularly in the compilation of Akanāmāru is really significant. In that anthology of 400 love poems we find all odd numbered on Pālai, all even numbered ending with 2 or 8 on Rurifici, with 4 on Mullai, 6 on Marutam and all the rest (i.e. divisible by 10) on Weytal. - Next to this we find the three-fold classification Mudal, Karu and Uri which literally mean the prime or the source, the embryo or the nucleus and the belonging or the possession respectively. Every one of of the above mentioned divisions of five-fold land has this trio as the basis for its literature. The Mudal or prime consists of the land and time. According to the ancient Tamils the wedding of these two was the source of each and every activity on earth. Without place and time, they were sure, there was no life. Is it not true even to-day?
