The Cilappatikaram is set in an early Chola kingdom flourishing seaport region. Kannaki and Kovalan are a couple who are newly married, in love and living in bliss. Over time Kovalan meets a courtesan with Matavi. He is falling for her, leaving Kannaki and moving in with Matavi. He lavishly spends on her. Kannaki is heartbroken, but she waits, as the chaste daughter, despite the unfaithfulness of her husband. There is a singing competition during the festival for Indra, the god of rain. Kovalan chants a poem about a woman who was hurting her boyfriend. Then Matavi chants a song about a man who betrayed his lover.Everybody interprets the song as a message to each other. Kovalan thinks he is unfaithful to Matavi, and leaves her. Kannaki awaits him still. She takes back him.
Kannaki and Kovalan leave the town and head to the Pandya kingdom of Madurai. Kovalan is destitute and penniless. Kannaki confesses his mistakes. She forgives him, and tells him of the pain that his infidelity gave her. Then she encourages her husband to reconstruct their lives together, and gives him one of her jewelry anklets to sell to raise starting capital. Kovalan sells it to a merchant but he is wrongly accused by the merchant as having stolen the queen's anklet. The king captures Kovalan and then murders him, without proper judicial checks and procedures. When Kovalan doesn't come back home, Kannaki goes looking for him. She is discovering what happened.She protests the injustice and then proves the innocence of Kovalan by throwing the pair's other jeweled anklet in court. The king accepts its error. Kannaki curses the king and curses the Madurai men, cutting off her breast and tossing it at the gathered crowd. King is dying. The culture that had made her suffer as a result of her curse suffers in revenge as the city of Madurai is burnt to the ground.In the third section of the epic, gods and goddesses meet Kannaki, and go with god Indra to heaven. The Chera kingdom royal family learns about her, resolves to build a temple as the featured goddess with Kannaki. They go to the Himalayas, bring with them a stone, carve their image, call their goddess Pattini, dedicate a temple, order daily prayers and make a royal sacrifice.
Author is Ilango Adigal.He is reputed to be the brother of Chera King Cenkuttuvan, described in the Fifth Ten of the Patiuppattu, a poem from the Sangam literature, whose family and rule. However, there is no evidence in it or elsewhere that the famous king had a brother. For the epic the Sangam poems never mention Ilango Adigal, the epic or any other author's name. In a much later-dated patikam attached to the poem, the name Ilango Adigal appears, and the authenticity of this attribution is doubtful.According to Gananath Obeyesekere, the story of the alleged author Ilango Adigal of Silappadikaram as the brother of a famous Chera king "must be later interpolations," which was a characteristic feature of early literature.