marked off one another has not been easy. To add to the confusions, some historians have even denounced these colophons as later additions and untrustworthy as historical documents. A careful study of the synchronisation between the kings, chieftains and the poets suggested by these colophons indicates that this body of literature reflect occurrences within a period of four or five continuous generations at the most, a period of 120 or 150 years. Any attempt at extracting a systematic chronology and data from these poems should be aware of the casual nature of these poems and the wide difference between the purposes of the anthologist who collected these poems and the historian’s attempts are arriving at a continuous history. There have been unsuccessful attempts at dating the poems of Purananuru based on the mention of the Mahabharata war. A more reliable source for the period of these poems is based on the mentions one finds on the foreign trade and presence of Greek and Roman merchants in the port of Musiri (poem 343), which give us a date of between 200 BCE to 150 CE for the period of these poems. This is further strengthened by the mention of a reference to Ramayana in poem 378, and a reference to Maurya in poem 175, which indicates a late date of about 187 BCE. A combination of these two considerations would indicate a composition date range during the 2nd century BCE. Ramayana Reference The earliest reference to the Epic Ramayana in Tamil literature is found in the Purananuru 378, attributed to the poet UnPodiPasunKudaiyar, written in praise of the Chola king IIamchetchenni. The poem makes the analogy of a poet receiving royal gifts and that worn by the relatives of the poet as being unworthy for their status, to the event in the Ramayana, where Sita drops her jewels when abducted by Ravana and these jewels being picked up red-faced monkeys who delightfully wore the ornaments. Publishing in modern times U. V. Swaminatha Iyer (1855-1942) resurrected the first three epics and Sangam literature from the appalling neglect and wanton destruction of centuries. He reprinted the literature present in the palm leaf form to paper books. He published Purananuru for the first time in 1894. Ramaswami Mudaliar, a Tamil scholar, first gave him the palm leaves of Civaka Cintamani to study. Being the first time, Swaminatha Iyer had to face many difficulties in