Tolkappiyam and Iraiyanar AkapporuI are the early theoretical treatises on the Akam tradition of the Tamils. The third part of Tolkappiyam, namely poruIatikaram, focuses primarily on the Akam and Puram aspects of life, besides dealing with the systems of prosody, poetical devices, usage of words, forms of literary compositions, bodily manifestations, and methods of composition. Tolkappiyar’s classification of the contents of poetry into Akam (interior) and Puram (exterior) and the creation of the system of tinai are unique in the realm of poetic creation. Tolkappiyar gives the principles of poetics involving the composition of love poems and also Puram poems based on the literary works available before and during his period. The “tinai” system covers both the Akam and Puram divisions, but it is more consistent with Akam poetry where there is a perfect unity among the three elements of tinai – mutal (time and place) karu (matrix, environment), and uri (theme/situation) representing theme-tinai correlation. But in the case of Puram poems, out of the three elements of tinai, only the theme is presented without the other elements, namely mutal and karu. The classification of tinai into mutal, karu, and uripporuI, the main and supplementary characters, their functions and characteristics, the situations of their discourses in the premarital (kaIavu) and marital (karpu) life, the literary techniques such as uIIurai, iraicci, and meippatu, i.e. implications, and emotional manifestations etc., provide the poetic universe of the Akam tradition