Introduction to Sangam literature and Tamil religious beliefs

After Sanskrit, Tamil is the next oldest language and it is still in use.

The Sangam period literature can be summarised as below:
Ettuthokai (8 compilations) 3rd Cent A.D.
Pathupattu (10 songs) 3rd Cent A.D.
Tolkappiyam (work on grammar) 1st Cent B.C. to 1st Cent A.D.
Pathinenkeezhkanakku (18 classics) 5th Cent A.D.
Silappadikaram 5th Cent A.D.
Manimekalai 5th Cent A.D.

The Ainperumkappiyam refers to the Five Great works

Silappadikaram
Manimekalai
Valayapathi
Kundalakesi
Tolkappiyam

The Ettuthokai talks about Aham and Puram.
The 5 Thinais or types of landscapes are much talked about here. Palai, kurinji, marutham, mullai and neythal referring to wasteland, mountains, agricultural land, sylvan tracts and littoral tracts respectively. There is a god associated with each thinai, a season, a time of day and so on. The heroines of poetries are also to follow these thinais, each thinai rules over a type of heroine or love-behaviour- separation, union, variance, patient endurance, pining, etc.

The primordial Tamil religious beliefs included spirits, ghosts, nature worship, ancestor worship, divinity being inherent to a specific place, descent of the divine into humans (possession), etc.

The prominent Gods were Maal or Mayon identified with Vishnu.
Shiva gained importance later on from the earlier nomenclature of Rudra.

These two gave rise to Vaishnavism and Shaivism much later on.