Narrinai Nanuru (Narrinai Four Hundred), called Narrinai in brief, is a collection of 400 Akam verses (excluding the invocatory verse) and is by tradition counted first among the eight anthologies of the Cankam period. The verses of this anthology vary in length from 9 lines to 12 lines, except verses 110 and 379 which have 13 lines each. Verse 385 has come down to us only partially (7 lines); verse 234, believed to have been lost, is now traced to the illustrative verse of Iraiyanar Akapporul verse 28, found in its commentary. On the basis of the remaining 396 verses, it can be said that Narrinai represents a middle position, in that Kuruntokai verses vary in length from 4 to 8 lines, while Akananuru verses vary from 13 to 31 lines. The patterns of the line length of these three Akam anthologies may point not only to the structural unity of each of these three anthologies but also to the fact that anthologization of the Akam poems has been done on certain criteria of form and structure.