Scholars place the Tirukkural squarely in the late Sangam era of ancient Tamilakam—roughly between the 1st century BCE and the 5th century CE—with many voices zooming in on around 200 CE as the sweet spot. Linguistic clues in its concise couplets and thematic echoes of contemporaneous Sangam poetry point toward that window, when trade with Rome and bustling port towns like Puhar and Muziris were shaping South India’s cultural landscape.

Three factors help pin down its era: • Ceramic and coin finds from the period show a thriving Tamil merchant class whose values of honesty and frugality resonate in the Kural’s chapters on wealth and ethics.
• Inscriptions and commentaries—some dating to the 6th–7th centuries—refer back to Valluvar’s work as already time-honored wisdom.
• Comparative studies with other Sangam anthologies reveal shared poetic devices and social themes, suggesting a common literary milieu.

These couplets weren’t written in a vacuum. They arrived when the subcontinent’s silk roads were humming, philosophies from afar were filtering in, and local chieftains were keen to anchor governance in moral codes beyond mere might. Imagine boardrooms and village councils alike quoting lines on virtue and righteousness—hard to believe that voice originates from two millennia ago, yet here it is, as fresh as ever.

Today, corporate coaches and social media influencers alike dip into Tirukkural for nuggets on leadership, compassion and resilience—proof that its pithy guidance still leaps off the page, standing the test of time across centuries and cultures.