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The Tolkappiyam is the name of:
Explanation
The Tolkappiyam is the most ancient extant Tamil grammar text and a foundational work of Tamil literature. Attributed to the author Tolkappiyar, it is traditionally assigned to the second Sangam period. The work is comprehensively structured into three books (atikaram): Eluttatikaram (sounds/orthography), Sollatikaram (words/morphology), and Porulatikaram (meanings/rhetoric). Each book contains nine chapters, totaling 1,610 sutras. While it primarily serves as a grammatical treatise, the third section is particularly significant as it details the canons of Sangam poetic traditions, covering themes of love (akam) and war (puram), and the significance of context in language. It predates the influence of classical Sanskrit in the region and remains the best representative of the old Dravidian linguistic core.