puram

{{Short description|Classic poetry genre}}

{{Use dmy dates|date=August 2020}}

{{Use Indian English|date=August 2020}}

Puram ({{indic|lang=ta|indic=புறம்|trans=puṟam}}, Lit. exterior) is one of two genres of Classical Tamil poetry. The concept of the lifestyle of human beings falls in two categories: personal and public. The genre dealing with poems about love affairs is called Akam (அகம்), while Puram concerns many subjects including wars, kings, poets and personal virtues.{{cite web | url=http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/556016/South-Asian-arts/65174/Narrative-literature | title="South Asian arts" | publisher=Encyclopædia Britannica | year=2014 |access-date=7 December 2014}}

Tolkāppiyam, the earliest work of Tamil grammar and literature available in Tamil, divides each genre into seven strands (Thinai), comparing and connecting the two categories of lifestyle.{{cite web | url=http://www.cse.iitk.ac.in/users/amit/books/hart-2002-four-hundred-songs.html | title=The Four Hundred Songs of War and Wisdom: An Anthology of Poems from Classical Tamil, the Purananuru | publisher=Columbia University Press | access-date=15 April 2014}}

Works in the Puram genre reflect on different people's lifestyles, especially that of kings. The works identify personal names, unlike in the Akam genre.{{cite book | url=https://books.google.com/books?id=aex_vpsu3gwC&pg=PA111 | title=The Courts of Pre-colonial South India: Material Culture and Kingship | publisher=Routledge | author=Howes, Jennifer | year=2002 | pages=111 | isbn=978-0-7007-1585-5}} Because they include the names of kings, poets, and places, Tamil literary scholars consider them a historical record.{{cite book | url=https://books.google.com/books?id=veSItWingx8C&pg=PA72 | title=Songs of Experience: The Poetics of Tamil Devotion | publisher=Indiana University Press | author=Cutler, Norman | year=1987 | pages=72 | isbn=978-0-253-35334-4}}