Which one of the following statements about Sangam literature in ancient South India is correct?

The correct answer is option 2.

Key PointsSangan Literature:

• Sangam literature is the name given to the earliest available Tamil literature.
  • The collection of poems known as Sangam literature was produced over six centuries from about 300 BC to AD 300 by Tamils from diverse social backgrounds, although most of the work is believed to have been composed between 100 CE and 250 CE.
  • The three chief Tamil kingdoms of this period were the Cheras, the Cholas, and the Pandyas. 
  • In Sangam society, It was during the stimulus of contact with the elements of material culture brought from the north to the extreme end of the peninsula by traders, conquerors and Jaina, Buddhists, and some Brahmana missionaries, that they came to have social classes, and they also came to practice wet paddy cultivation and founded numerous villages and towns.  
  • Sangam poems contain several incidental references to material culture, often as part of the poem’s setting or in similes and allusions. Hence statement 1 is incorrect.
• The social classification of varna was known to Sangam poets.
  • There is mention of the Arashar (kings), Vaishiyar (traders), and Velalar (farmers).
  • The Brahmanas are also mentioned, some of them closely associated with the courts of kings and patronized by ruling elites.
  • However, the four-fold varna classification had little application to ancient Tamil society. The jati system was not a feature of this society either.  Hence statement 2 is correct
• Sangam literature which combines idealism with realism and classic grace with indigenous industry and strength is rightly regarded as constituting the Augustan age of Tamil literature.
  • It deals with a secular matter relating to public and social activity like government, war, charity, trade, worship, agriculture, etc.
  • Sangam Poems are pervaded with a warrior ethic. Hence statement 3 is incorrect.
• Sangam literature reflects a belief in sacred or magical forces called ananku that were supposed to inhabit various objects.
  • The job of carrying out rites and rituals to control the ananku was that of groups such as the pariyans, tutiyans, panas and velans.
  • They were associated with ritualistic singing, dancing, and trances, and with lighting the cremation fire and worshipping memorial stones.  Hence statement 4 is incorrect.