Classical Tamil poetry dating back at least to the first three centuries of the Christian era is among the finest of world literature. Though there are reasons to believe that ancient Tamil itself had along with poetic tradition and a large body of literature, only a grammatical treatise in verse called the Tolkappiyam, the Eight Anthologies (Ettuttokai) and the Ten Long Poems (Pattuppattu) have survived the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune. Numerous texts produced by the three academies or Cankams might have also stood the test of time but the Tamils, for reasons not clearly known, did not save them from the ravages of time.