Speaking of translations, one cannot but remember the works of Homer and Virgil, the translations of which have greatly contributed to changes in western thought and civilization. The works of Rabindranath Tagore written in Bengali, but carefully translated into English, have conveyed to the western world the power of an uncorrupted eastern mind. Tamil is a language with a continuous literary tradition from ancient times to the present. The sangam anthologies constitute a highly unified literary corpus, defined not only by its chronological placement in Tamil literary history, but also by a shared repertoire of situations, settings, characters, and poetic figures. One of the oldest regional literatures from the Indian subcontinent, Tamil literature is known for the beauty of its classical love poetry and heroic poetry, the variety of its religious texts, and the existence of a sophisticated and self-critical commentarial traditional.