Tamilakam was the name of the ancient Tamil country that included

Correct — B, land between present day Tirupati hills and the southernmost tip of peninsula. The classical definition comes from the preface to the Tolkappiyam, which places the land where Tamil is spoken as the mother tongue between the northern Venkata hill and the southern Kumari — that is, between the Venkata or Tirupati hills in the north and Kanyakumari at the tip of the peninsula. The Silappadikaram says the same thing in other words, describing the Tamil region as running from the hills of Vishnu in the north to the ocean at the cape in the south. On the modern map this covers Tamil Nadu, Kerala and Puducherry along with the southern edges of Andhra Pradesh and Karnataka. Three dynasties shared it in the Sangam age: the Cheras in the west, the Cholas in the Kaveri valley and the Pandyas around the Vaigai.

• (a)present-day Tamil Nadu as well as parts of Sri Lanka — Sri Lanka lies outside Tamilakam. The island had its own political history and appears in Tamil sources as Ilam, a separate country across the strait, not as part of the Tamil land.
• (c)present-day Tamil Nadu and Maharashtra — Maharashtra is far to the north of the Venkata hills, across the Deccan, and belongs to a different linguistic region entirely.
• (d)present day Kerala, Telangana and Karnataka — Kerala is genuinely part of Tamilakam and the southern strip of Karnataka is too, but the option omits Tamil Nadu, which is the core of it, and adds Telangana, which lies well north of the boundary.

Tamilakam is the geographical unit of the Sangam age, roughly the last three centuries before the Common Era and the first three after. Its literature divides the land into five tinais by landscape — kurinji the hills, mullai the forest and pasture, marutam the cultivated plains, neytal the coast, and palai the arid tract — and each carries its own deity, occupation and poetic mood. That fivefold scheme is examined as often as the boundary itself.

Two limits and one exclusion decide this item. The northern limit is the Venkata hill, which is Tirupati; the southern is Kumari, which is Kanyakumari; and Sri Lanka sits outside. Option (a) is the tempting one because Tamil is spoken in Sri Lanka today, but that is a fact about the present, not about the Sangam-age unit the question is naming. Note that Kerala is inside Tamilakam, since the Chera country of the Sangam texts is the Malabar coast — a point that surprises candidates who read Tamilakam as meaning only Tamil Nadu.

• The Tolkappiyam places Tamilakam between the northern Venkata hill and the southern Kumari.
• The Silappadikaram describes it as running from the hills of Vishnu in the north to the ocean at the cape.
• It covers modern Tamil Nadu, Kerala and Puducherry plus the southern parts of Andhra Pradesh and Karnataka.
• The Cheras, Cholas and Pandyas were its three ruling houses, with Velir chieftains holding smaller territories.
• Sangam poetics divides the land into five tinais — kurinji, mullai, marutam, neytal and palai.

• Reading Tamilakam as coextensive with modern Tamil Nadu and leaving out Kerala.
• Including Sri Lanka because Tamil is spoken there today.
• Placing the northern limit at the Krishna or the Godavari instead of at the Venkata hills.

Asked as a definition item where the correct option quotes a classical boundary and the distractors substitute modern political geography for it.

• practice — not a real PYQ

  In the Sangam texts, the landscape division called marutam refers to

  • (a)the hilly tract
  • (b)the cultivated plains
  • (c)the seacoast
  • (d)the arid tract

  Answer(b) the cultivated plains — kurinji is the hills, neytal the coast and palai the arid land.

• practice — not a real PYQ

  The Chera country of the Sangam age corresponds broadly to which modern region?

  • (a)Coastal Andhra Pradesh
  • (b)The Kaveri delta
  • (c)Kerala and western Tamil Nadu
  • (d)Southern Karnataka

  Answer(c) Kerala and western Tamil Nadu — the Cholas held the Kaveri valley and the Pandyas the Vaigai.