Sangam

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. A term denoting the confluence of two or more rivers; historically significant literary academies or gatherings in ancient South India known for the creation and preservation of Tamil literature; a cultural concept referring to a coming together or union of people or ideas
2. A word describing the joining point of multiple watercourses; famous assemblies of poets and scholars in classical Tamil history; a symbolic notion of unity and collaboration among communities or thoughts
3. Referring to the meeting place of rivers; renowned ancient Tamil literary societies engaged in composition and critique of poetry; an emblematic phrase representing collective harmony and synthesis of cultures or intellectual pursuits

Etymology: Sangam comes from Tamil "saṅkam", meaning "assembly" or "gathering," and the same word has long been used for the confluence where two rivers meet. Sanskrit "sangama" carries the same sense of a joining or coming together, and Tamil took it into its own vocabulary, so the river meaning and the social meaning share a root. The name is most famously applied to a body of early Tamil poetry, traditionally said to have been composed and judged by successive assemblies of poets in the southern Pandya kingdoms. The traditional accounts describe three academies, each supposedly lasting many centuries, though these details come from later commentary and are not independently confirmed. The surviving anthologies, dated roughly between the early centuries BCE and CE, are what scholars now mean by the term. In modern usage the word has moved beyond literature. It is often used as a symbol of cultural meeting and collaboration, and it appears in names of institutions and cultural movements, particularly in Tamil-speaking regions.

Synonyms: assembly, confluence