What is "pattuppattu"

PathuPattu – The ten Idylls, is an anthology of ten mid length books and is one of the oldest surviving Tamil Poetry. This collection is considered part of the Sangam Literature and dated approximately between 300 BCE and 200 CE. This collection had been lost for some centuries until U.V.Swaminatha Iyer travelled around Tamil Nadu in the late nineteenth century to collect ancient palm-leaf manuscripts

It is not known who made this collection or the exact date it was collected. Although the name PathuPattu has been in use for very long, it is unknown whether this was the intended name of this anthology when it was first collected.