Kar Narpathu is a Tamil

Tamil language

Tamil is a Dravidian language spoken predominantly by Tamil people of the Indian subcontinent. It has official status in the Indian state of Tamil Nadu and in the Indian union territory of Pondicherry. Tamil is also an official language of Sri Lanka and Singapore...

 poetic work 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. Kar Narpathu contains forty poems written by the poet Kannankoothanaar who lived in Madurai

Madurai

Madurai is the third largest city in the Indian state of Tamil Nadu and one of the oldest continuously inhabited cities in the world. It served as the capital city of the Pandyan Kingdom. It is the administrative headquarters of Madurai District and is famous for its temples built by Pandyan and...

.

The poems of Kar Narpathu deal with the agam (internal) subjects. Agam in the Sangam literature

Sangam literature

Sangam literature refers to a body of classical Tamil literature created between the years c. 600 BCE to 300 CE. This collection contains 2381 poems composed by 473 poets, some 102 of whom remain anonymous The period during which these poems were composed is commonly referred to as the Sangam...

denotes the subject matters that deal with the intangibles of life such as human emotions, love, separation, lovers' quarrels, etc. Most of the poems of Kar Narpathu are in the form of the heroine being consoled by her friend by describing the beauties of the rainy season (the Tamil word Kar means rain).