Mullaippattu

Mullaippattu is a poetic work of Tamil literature from the Sangam age and is included in the Ettuttokai anthology of Sangam literature. The Tamil poetic work can be traced back to the period equivalent to between 100 BCE - 100 CE. Mullaippattu has 103 lines of verses and is the shortest poem in the Pattuppattu anthology, composed in the Akaval meter. The poet Nappoothanaar has written the poems in Mullaippattu. Kurincippattu and Mullaippattu are the only love poems amongst the other poems in the Pattuppattu anthology that are unique. The poems don`t indulge in the praise of a munificent patron or king. Moreover, neither the king`s country nor an urban centre is described either. The major focus is to express the human feeling of love which is the primary theme of Akam poems.

Content of Mullaippattu
The theme and subject of Mullaippattu belongs to the classification of the subjective matter known as Akam that revolves around human emotions and experiences like love and other human relationships. Mullaippattu is a genuine love poem and narrates about a woman who longs for her lover, who has went to fight a war and left her. In the ancient days, the soldiers used return to their own country and back to their homes during the monsoon season, in order to tend to their prime profession of agriculture. The heroine mourns that even though the monsoon has arrived on time, yet the love of her life hasn`t returned back home from the battleground. The narration of the country and the natural landscape during the rainy season is particularly outstanding in this book.

The fundamental theme of Mullaittinai poems is to focus on the patience and self-control depicted by a wife, until her husband, who is a warrior, comes back from a victorious military campaign. The hero of the poem is away on a military operation must return home before the arrival of rainy season. If the soldiers stay in the combat zone during the monsoon season then the seasonal harvest will be adversely affected in the nations engaged in war. Thus it is a tradition among the soldiers to go back to their respective homelands before the monsoons. The poem describes that even though there were suggestions that marks the arrival of monsoonal weather, her soldier husband has not yet returned from his military operation. While the heroine wonders about any delay, she begins to hear the sound of chariot wheels.

This forms the basic theme of the poem Mullaippattu and also elaborately narrates the stunning natural and scenic beauty of the forest land during the rainy season.