Thirikatukam 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 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. Thirikatukam contains 100 poems written by the poet Nallathanaar. The poems of Thirikatukam 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.

Thirikatukam uses the analogy of the traditional herbal medicine, which uses the three herbs sukku (dried ginger

Ginger

Ginger is the rhizome of the plant Zingiber officinale, consumed as a delicacy, medicine, or spice. It lends its name to its genus and family . Other notable members of this plant family are turmeric, cardamom, and galangal....

), milaku (pepper

Black pepper

Black pepper is a flowering vine in the family Piperaceae, cultivated for its fruit, which is usually dried and used as a spice and seasoning. The fruit, known as a peppercorn when dried, is approximately in diameter, dark red when fully mature, and, like all drupes, contains a single seed...

) and thippili (Long pepper

Long pepper

Long pepper , , sometimes called Indian long pepper, is a flowering vine in the family Piperaceae, cultivated for its fruit, which is usually dried and used as a spice and seasoning. Long pepper has a similar, but hotter, taste to its close relative Piper nigrum - from which black, green and white...

) to cure maladies of the stomach. Thirikatugam similarly uses three different maxims to illustrate correct behaviour.