In Tamil Puranams means history or account of ancient
incidents. In Sanskrit, there are eighteen Mahapuranas and twenty nine
upapuranas. These were composed by Sage Veda Vyasa. Similarly, there are Nine
Puranams in Tamil which are famous and contains accounts of divine incidents
happen in the ancient Tamil world. The Nine Puranams are:
- Kandapuranam
- Periyapuranam
- Thiruvilaiyadalpuranam
- Koilpuranam
- Sethupuranam
- Sikalathipuranam
- Kanchipuranam
- Thanigaipuranam
- Kurralapuranam.
The most popular among these nine are Kandapuranam, Periyapuranam
and Thiruvilaiyadalpuranam.
Kandapuranam was composed by Kachiappa Sivachariar and it
deals with the emergence and exploits of Lord Kandan (also known as Skanda,
Subrahmanian or Muruga).
Periapuranam was composed by Sekkizhar and it recounts the
lives, divinity, devotion and miracles of sixty three individual saints and the
qualities of the groups of saints.
Thiruvilaiyadalpuranam was first written by
Perumparrappuliyur Nambi and later by Paranjothi Munivar. The book contains the
miracles of Shiva in 3 cantos comprising of 64 padalams and 3363 stanzas.
Notes taken from the forward section of the book titled Lord
Shiva’s Miracles (Madurai Thiruvilaiyadal) by Dr. P. Gopalan.