Tiruviruttam

The Tiruviruttam (திருவிருத்தம்) is a work of Tamil Hindu literature composed by Nammalvar, a poet-saint of the Sri Vaishnava tradition. Comprising one hundred verses, is one of the many works present in the compilation known as the Nalayira Divya Prabandham. According to tradition, it is said to contain the quintessence of the Rigveda.

Structure
The Tiruviruttam is framed as a love story that unfolds between an anonymous heroine (talaivi) and her beloved hero (talaivan), while friends, fortune tellers, bees, birds, and the poet’s own heart play important supporting roles, acting as messengers, lamenters, and audiences in the style of a story. According to some interpretations, this poem is regarded to take the form of a dramatic sequence, in which a few characters discuss the love of God, which is portrayed as the earthly love between a man and a woman. In this regard, the poet Nammalvar's yearning for God expresses itself through a woman's love-tossed heart pining for her omnipotent lover. Secular love for a man by a woman is framed as divine love for God himself in this work.

The Indologist David Shulman states that the hymns of the Tiruviruttam, "create a poetic or aesthetic world suffused by classical grammar".

Hymns
The hymns of the Tiruviruttam are structured as a conversation, or a series of exchanges between the heroine of the poem and her friends. The first few hymns of this poem serve as an example of this format:

"False wisdom, wicked conduct, dirty bodies let us not draw near such things now To protect life you took birth from many wombs O master of the unblinking ones stand before me embodied listen graciously to a servant’s plea"

One of the responses of the heroine's friends is written thus:

"They haven't flowered yet, the fat konrai trees, nor hung out their garlands and golden circlets in their sensual canopy of leaves along the branches,

dear girl, dear as the paradise of our lord who measured the earth girdled by the restless sea,

they are waiting with buds for the return of your lover once twined in your arms."