Tamilmanam International Research Journal of Tamil Studies

Sangam literature is a rich document that illustrates the natural observation skills of ancient Tamils and their close relationship with the animal kingdom. Focusing on descriptions of animals such as the elephant, deer, wild boar, monkey, and tiger featured in Sangam poems, this article examines how their physical structure, diet, family attachment, and conflicts with enemies were meticulously observed by poets and recorded in poetic language. Poetic conventions—such as comparing an elephant's tusk to the crescent moon and screw-pine bud, a wild boar's head to a mortar, and a monkey's infant to a human child—are taken as examples for analysis. The knowledge of animal classification provided in Tolkāppiyam's Marapiyal is also comparatively analyzed in this paper. The ultimate conclusion of this article is that the intellectual dimension of natural observation, combined with the artistic dimension of connecting it to human emotions, together form the zoology of Sangam literature. It presents this as a rich dataset of the ancient Tamils' living knowledge and linguistic wealth, useful for contemporary ecological and cultural studies.