Tamil is the oldest language of India, and Tamilian culture is even older. Its earliest surviving literature is highly developed and bears ample proof of much anterior poetry (now irretrievably lost) and a mature civilization. Nor is all this is a mere matter of ancient History. We use words in colloquial speech today that were used n Tamil literature close on 2000 years ago, and Tamil cultural traditions have continuity from the remote past. One needs to know Tamil and its vast literature well, as well as the culinary culture of the country to understand the pride of the Tamil people in their heritage.
Tamil Nadu is suffused with poetry. There is hardly a stone or a tree, level alone a own or a temple, that has not been hymned by an Alwar or a Nayanar or some poet. Others have sung of the sea (Bharati saw only the face of his beloved in the vast ocean, in the blue sky and in the threading foam) of the rivers –the Cauveri, the Golden Girl, the Palar, the Pennal, and the Vaigi –and of the green hills, the Coral Hills.
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