According to the Tolkappiyam, which of the following tinais refers to the hilly region?

The correct answer is A, Nedunjeliyan II, the Pandya king of Madurai who is remembered in Sangam poetry as the victor of the battle of Talaiyalanganam, in which he is said to have defeated a confederacy of the Chera and Chola kings and five lesser chieftains. Option B, Karikala, is wrong because he belonged to the Chola line; he won the battle of Venni, founded Puhar at the mouth of the Kaveri and is credited with the embankment across that river. Option C, Ashoka, is wrong because he was the Mauryan emperor of Magadha, although his Rock Edicts II and XIII do name the Pandyas among the peoples beyond his frontier. Option D, Nizam Shah, is wrong because the Nizam Shahi line ruled at Ahmadnagar in the Deccan in the medieval period, more than a thousand years after the Sangam Age.

The correct answer is C, Tamil. The Sangam corpus is the oldest body of Tamil literature and includes the grammar Tolkappiyam, the Eight Anthologies, the Ten Idylls and the Eighteen Minor Works, all in Tamil. Option A, Sanskrit, is wrong because Sanskrit was the language of the Vedic and classical literature of the north and of later inscriptions in the south, not of the Sangam poems, though Sanskrit words do appear in them. Option B, Prakrit, is wrong because Prakrit was used in Ashokan edicts and in Jaina canonical works of western India. Option D, Pali, is wrong because Pali was the language of the Buddhist Tipitaka of Sri Lanka and of the Theravada tradition. Tamil-Brahmi inscriptions of the same period, such as those at Pugalur, confirm the use of Tamil in the region.

The correct answer is B, Chola – Uraiyur. The early Cholas ruled from Uraiyur on the Kaveri and later made Puhar, also called Kaveripattinam, their capital and chief port; their emblem was the tiger. Option A is wrong because Madurai was the Pandya capital, not the Chera one, and the Pandya emblem was the fish. Option C is wrong because Vanji, identified with Karur, was the Chera capital, and the Chera emblem was the bow and arrow. Option D is wrong for the same reason: Puhar belonged to the Cholas, while the Chera ports were Muziris and Tondi on the western coast. The safest way to carry these pairs into the examination hall is to remember the chain Chera–Vanji–bow, Chola–Uraiyur–tiger and Pandya–Madurai–fish. The Chola capital later shifted to the coast because Puhar, standing where the Kaveri meets the sea, carried the kingdom's trade with Rome and with South-East Asia.

The correct answer is B, Tolkappiyam, written by Tolkappiyar. It is a work on Tamil grammar and poetics in three books, and because its sections on poetic conventions describe the land, the people and their occupations, historians use it as a source for Sangam society, including the five-fold division of land into kurinji, mullai, marutham, neithal and palai. Option A, the Tirukkural of Thiruvalluvar, is wrong because it is a later ethical work of 1,330 couplets grouped under the Eighteen Minor Works. Option C, Silappadikaram of Ilango Adigal, is wrong because it is one of the twin epics and was composed after the Sangam Age proper. Option D, Purananuru, is wrong because it is one of the Eight Anthologies, a collection of heroic poems rather than a grammar.

The correct answer is B, 1,330 couplets, arranged in 133 chapters of ten couplets each and divided into three parts dealing with virtue, wealth and love. The work belongs to the Pathinenkilkanakku, the Eighteen Minor Works, and is the most widely quoted book of Tamil literature. Option A, 1,008, is wrong; it is a round figure associated with devotional lists, not with the Kural. Option C, 2,000, is wrong because no section of the Kural reaches that number. Option D, 133, is wrong because that is the number of chapters, not couplets, and examiners deliberately offer it as a distractor next to the correct figure. Remembering the pair 133 chapters and 1,330 couplets together removes the confusion. The Kural's appeal across communities is one reason it was among the first Indian works to be translated into European languages.