ಪುನಾನೂರು: புறநானூறு: Purananuru (Tamil Text, Kannada Transliteration, Translation And Commentary)

Bharatidasan's dream about the future of Tamil language, literature and Culture is coming true. His life-long desire that Tamil literature should be made known through translations into numerous world languages is being fulfilled. Where is the day when the honey river will pour into my ear incessantly the news of this worlds' wish to see mother Tamil, my Tamils' poems in a thousand tongues?

Central Institute of Classical Tamil has undertaken the onerous task of getting forty-one ancient Tamil Classics translated into English and other western and Indian languages as these immortal works reflect the sweetness of Tamil, its strength, its uniqueness, its heritage, its richness and its grandeur.

Now we are proud to launch the Kannada translations of Ettuttokai and Pattuppättu, ably done by a select band of scholars led by Thiru. R. Srinivasan associated with the reputed Bangalore Tamil Sangam.

In its four hundred stanzas of varied lengths, Purananuru deals with almost all the aspects of life on earth such as war, fame, poverty, philanthropy, friendship, education, sense of shame, fear of blame, life of a householder, renunciation, children, farming, widowhood, chastity and transitoriness of youth, life and wealth. Man-woman love, a theme reserved for akam poems, is the only subject that is not touched upon in these poems. Purananuru has served as a repertoire a poetic forms, themes and motifs to several succeeding generations of poets. Some of the sub-genres and motifs which Tamil poetry gained later spread to other Indian languages including Sanskrit.