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Tirumurai (Tamil: திருமுறை, meaning Holy Order) is a twelve-volume compendium of songs or hymns in praise of Shiva in the Tamil language from the 6th to the 11th century CE by various poets in Tamil Nadu. Nambiyandar Nambi compiled the first seven volumes by Appar, Sambandar, and Sundarar as Tevaram during the 12th century.
The ninth volume of Tirumurai is composed by Tamil poets (known as Nayanars) - Thirumaligai Thevar, Senthanar, Karuvur Thevar, Ponnthuruthi Nambi Kata Nambi, Kandarathithar, Venattadigal, Thiruvaliyamuthanar, Purshottama Nambi, Sethiyar and Senthanar [5] Among the eight, Kandarathithar, was a prince descended from Chola king, Parantaka I. [6]
Information about Tevaram Trio comes mainly from the Periya Puranam, the eleventh-century Tamil book on the Nayanars that forms the last volume of the Tirumurai. The first two Saints are mentioned in the third poet Sundarar's Tiruttondartokai (lit. The List of the Holy Servants) and other poetry which is generally dated to the 8th century.
Manikkavasagar's Thiruvasagam and Thirukovayar are compiled as the eighth Thirumurai and is full of visionary experience, divine love and urgent striving for truth. [2] Though he is not counted as one of the 63 Shaiva nayanars, he is counted as one of the Nalvars ("The Four") consisting of himself and the first three nayanars namely Appar, Sambandar and Sundarar. [3]
His songs are considered the most musical in Tirumurai in Tamil language. [3] His life and his hymns in the Tevaram are broadly grouped in four stages. First, his cancelled arranged marriage through the intervention of Shiva in the form of a mad petitioner and his conversion into a Shaiva devotee. [ 4 ]
[1] [2] Appar composed 4,900 devotional hymns to the god Shiva, out of which 313 have survived and are now canonized as the 4th to 6th volumes of Tirumurai. [3] One of the most prominent of the sixty-three revered Nayanars , he was an older contemporary of Sambandar .
Sekkilar compiled and wrote the Periya Puranam or the Great Purana in Tamil about the life stories of the sixty-three Shaiva Nayanars, poets of the deity Shiva who composed the liturgical poems of the Tirumurai, and was later himself canonised and the work became part of the sacred canon. [1]
Manikkavacakar was a 9th-century Tamil saint and poet who wrote Thiruvasagam, a book of Shaiva hymns. Speculated to have been a minister to the Pandya king Varagunavarman II (c. 862 CE–885 CE) [1] (also called Arimarthana Pandiyan), he lived in Madurai.