Acharakkovai is a poetic work of didactic nature belonging to the Pathinenkilkanakku

Pathinenkilkanakku

Pathinenkilkanakku is a collection of eighteen poetic works created during the 'post Sangam period' . The poems of this collection differ from the earlier works under the Pathinenmaelkanakku collection , which are the oldest surviving Tamil Poetry. The poems are written in the Venpa meter and are...

anthology of Tamil literature

Tamil literature

Tamil literature refers to the literature in the Tamil language. Tamil literature has a rich and long literary tradition spanning more than two thousand years. The oldest extant works show signs of maturity indicating an even longer period of evolution...

. This belongs to the 'post Sangam period' corresponding to between 100 – 500 CE. Acharakkovai contains 100 poems written by the poet Peruvaayin Mulliyaar. The poems of Acharakkovai are written in the Venpa

Venpa

Venpa is a form of classical Tamil poetry. Classical Tamil poetry has been classified based upon the rules of metric prosody. Such rules form a context-free grammar. Every Venpa consists of between two to twelve lines....

 meter.

Acharakkovai shows influences of Sanskrit

Sanskrit

Sanskrit , is a historical Indo-Aryan language and the primary liturgical language of Hinduism, Jainism and Buddhism.Buddhism: besides Pali, see Buddhist Hybrid Sanskrit Today, it is listed as one of the 22 scheduled languages of India and is an official language of the state of Uttarakhand...

literature and hence believed to be of a later period than the other poems in the Pathinenkilkanakku anthology. The instructions in Acharakkovai are concerned with personal ritual and the correct method to follow.