The classical music Krithis in Tamil started with the Sangam age . They used to call that music as Pan. Large amount of literature was created to fit in this classical method of classical music. Side by side the folk music of Tamil Nadu grew up in the villages. The Carnatic music singing was system possibly hads Sanskrit origins. But the great musician who systematized its teaching was sage Purandaradasa of Karnataka. He is often called "The Grand father of Carnatic music". During his time and immediately afterwards very many songs suitable for singing in Carnatic Ragas were written in Tamilnadu using Tamil. I have translated some of them in to English(341 songs) . These are available in http://stotraratna.sathyasaibababrotherhood.org/gi3.htm These include 57 songs by Oothukadu Venkata Subba iyer, 65 songs by Gopalakrishna Bharathi , 17 by Neelakanda Sivan , 33 by Mahakavi Subramanya Bharathi , 41 by Papanasam Sivan and 23 by Ambujam Krishna. With best wishes, Ramachander