The Marginal Status of People as Shown in Sangam Literature

Abstract

Tolkappiyam divides human society into four categories: kings, nobles, merchants, and agriculturalists. Over time, people developed various caste structures within the four groups. People are constantly creating/teaching some reason within themselves and living with the mindset of differentiating as high and low. Each group was/is in the mindset that they should have a group under them to do slave labour rather than think they are being enslaved by a group. The agriculturists did not get the social rights that were available to the king, nobles, and merchants. Sangam texts form the land-based communities. The land based communities came together for the barter system. However, they also had separate ideas of superior and inferior. There is a social structure based on professional systems of superiority and inferiority. Sangam texts reflect the position of people who lived a life of prosperity and the opposite position of people who lived a life of poverty. The occupations of the destitute to earn their living were considered despicable in those days. So those who do such professions are taught to be ignoble in society. This article sets out to consider them as marginalised people.