Irattaippulavar

Irattaippulavar refers to the Twin Poets in Tamil literature during the 14th century. They were two brothers who started composing verses as a team due to their birth deformity. Irattaippulavar or the Twin Poets made significant contributions in Tamil literature and created a prominent place for themselves with their literary compositions. The term Irattaippulavar is attributed to two cousins who were born in the cenkunta caste that belonged to the weavers. The elder brother was known as Mutucuriyar, meaning the Old Sun; and the younger sibling was called Ilancuriyar, meaning the Young Sun. Mutucuriyar was born lame and Ilancuriyar was blind. The two cousins travelled through various regions; Ilancuriyar carried his lame brother Mutucuriyar upon his shoulders. The Twin Poets begged and occasionally composed hymns and verses; along with a number of Prabandhams.

The poems composed by Irattaippulavar occasionally were amusing comments on everyday life and informal and improvised verses composed to meet different situations of emergency. All of the poems composed by the Twin Brothers were in the venpa meter and were mostly available in numerous anthology series. The poetic abilities of Irattaippulavar improved the relationship between the brothers and brightened their lives. While composing a complete poem, consisting of four lines in a verse, one brother composed the initial 2 lines and the next two lines were composed by the other. Both parts of the quatrains comprised of similar imagination and emotion.

Irattaippulavar also wrote some poems which pacify the arrogance and egotism of the rich, the critics and other people who are disrespectful of the talents of the authors and are impolite to the poets. This reveals that the Twin Poets had much self-respect. Some of the verses of Irattaippulavar praise the noble traits of the rich and their gratitude is expressed elaborately. Most of their occasional poems known as Tanippatalkal reveal their insightfulness and depth of thought and the method of composing poems. Several poem composed by the Twin Poets known as Irattaippulavar are popular for their humorous depiction of various subject matters.

Irattaippulavar established themselves as prominent poets in the composition of poems in the form of kalampakam. Two of the most popular works by the two cousin poets in this genre are Tiruvamatturk Kalampakam and Tillaikkalampakam. This poetic collection of Tillaikkalampakam is composed in the kalampakam genre and celebrates the grace of Lord Nataraja at Chidambaram. Ekampanatarula is another well known composition of Irattaippulavar in the ula genre.