What is "purananuru"

The Purananuru ( Tamill Puṟanāṉūṟu) is a Tamil poetic work in the Eṭṭuttokai, one of the eighteen melkanakku noolgal. It is a treatise on kingship: what a king should be, how he should act, how he should treat his subjects and how he should show his generosity. Sangam Collection is classified into Patiṉeṇmēlkaṇakku and Patiṉeṇkīḻkaṇakku and each classification has eighteen collections, as an anthology of Tamil literature, belonging to the Sangam period. It is dated between 7th century BCE and 5th century BCE.

The Purananuru is one of the eight books in the secular anthology of Sangam literature. The secular anthology is entirely unique in Indian literature, which nearly all religious texts during this era. The Purananuru contains 400 poems of varying lengths in the akaval meter. More than 150 poets wrote the poems. It is not known when or who collected these poems into these anthologies.

The Purananuru is a source of information on the political and social history of prehistoric Tamil Nadu. There is information on the various rulers who ruled the Tamil country before and during the Sangam era.