Āḻvārs & Nāyaṉmārs

The Tamil poet-saints — a child who sang at three, a woman who chose to look like a ghost, a hunter who gave his eye, a minstrel carried into the temple — and the rebels, grandmothers and mystics who came after them.

Walk around the inner corridor of almost any Shiva temple in Tamil Nadu or Malaysia and you will pass a row of small bronze or stone figures, hands folded: the sixty-three Nāyaṉmārs. In a Vishnu temple you will find the twelve Āḻvārs. Their hymns are told on Tamil Sacred Literature. This page is about the people — who they were, so far as historians can say, and how their devotees remember them.

History and hagiography

Almost everything we “know” about the Tamil saints comes from two kinds of source, and it helps to keep them apart.

The first is the hymns themselves. The saints often name their village, their temple, their companions, a king. From these, and from inscriptions, historians place most of the Nāyaṉmārs and Āḻvārs between about the 6th and the 9th centuries, under the Pallava and Pāṇṭiya kings — with every individual date debated.

The second is hagiography: sacred life-stories written centuries later. For the Shaivas the great one is the Periya Purāṇam of Sekkiḻār (Cēkkiḻār), composed in the 12th century at the Chola court. Its seed is a single hymn in which Sundarar (Cuntarar) names the devotees he serves, verse by verse:

தில்லைவாழ் அந்தணர்தம் அடியார்க்கும் அடியேன்
திருநீல கண்டத்துக் குயவனார்க் கடியேன்
…
ஆரூரன் ஆரூரில் அம்மானுக் காளே tillaivāḻ antaṇartam aṭiyārkkum aṭiyēṉ / tirunīla kaṇṭattuk kuyavaṉārk kaṭiyēṉ / … / ārūraṉ ārūril ammāṉuk kāḷē I am servant to the servants of the Brahmins who dwell in Tillai; I am servant to Tirunīlakaṇṭar the potter … — I, Ārūraṉ, servant of the Lord who dwells in Ārūr. Cuntarar, Tiruttoṇṭattokai (Tirumurai 7.39), verse 1, opening and closing lines

Notice the order: the Brahmin priests of Chidambaram, then a potter. Around the 10th–11th century Nambiyāṇḍār Nambi expanded the list in a hymn of his own, and Sekkiḻār turned it into an epic of more than four thousand verses. For the Vaiṣṇavas the equivalent is the Guruparamparāprabhāvam, Maṇipravāḷa prose “glories of the succession of teachers” (from about the 13th century), with Sanskrit lives such as the Divyasūricarita.

Seeker’s note On this page, sentences that tell a saint’s miracle or sacred life are marked as hagiography. That is not a judgement that they are false. It is how the tradition remembers — and the memory itself has shaped Tamil religion for nine hundred years.

The sixty-three Nāyaṉmārs

The sixty-three include kings and a queen, Brahmin priests, merchants, a potter, a hunter, a washerman and a man from a community barred from the temple. Only three are women: Kāraikkāl Ammaiyār, the Pāṇṭiya queen Maṅkaiyarkkaraci, and Sundarar’s mother Icaiññāṉiyār. Open the cards:

🌙Kāraikkāl Ammaiyārthe “Mother” — perhaps 6th c.

The earliest Shaiva poet whose works survive: her poems are in the eleventh Tirumurai, and her story in the Periya Purāṇam. Hagiography Born Punitavatī, a merchant’s wife, she produced a second mango from nowhere when her husband asked for the one she had given to a hungry devotee. Terrified, he fled and remarried. She asked Shiva to take away her beauty and make her a pēy, one of his ghoulish attendants; climbing Kailāsa on her hands, she was greeted by Shiva as ammai, “Mother.” Her poems at Tiruvālaṅkāṭu sing of Shiva dancing in the cremation ground — fierce, unsentimental and unforgettable.

🧹ApparTirunāvukkaracar — 7th c.

Born a Shaiva, he became a Jain monk under the name Dharmasena, and returned to Shiva after a crippling illness that his sister Tilakavatiyār’s prayers are said to have cured. Hagiography The Pallava king — usually identified as Mahendravarman I — had him thrown into a lime-kiln and before an elephant; he survived, and the king himself turned to Shiva. Appar is remembered with a small hoe (uḻavāram) for clearing grass from temple courtyards: devotion as humble service. His hymns are quoted on the Tamil literature page.

🥛SambandarTiruñāṉacampantar — 7th c.

The child-saint of Cīrkāḻi. Hagiography Left crying by the temple tank at the age of three, he was fed milk by the Goddess and, when his father demanded who had fed him, pointed to Shiva and sang his first hymn (below). He travelled with the Pāṇar musician Tirunīlakaṇṭa Yāḻppāṇar, debated the Jains at Madurai, and at sixteen, on his wedding day, entered a great light with his bride and all the guests.

🐘SundararCuntaramūrtti — 8th c.

Hagiography At his own wedding, an old Brahmin produced a document proving that Sundarar was his hereditary slave — and turned out to be Shiva, who claimed him for his service and told him to begin his singing with the word pittā, “madman!” Sundarar went on to speak to Shiva as a friend: he asked him for gold and rice, scolded him when he went blind, and married twice with his help. His friend the Chera king Cēramāṉ Perumāḷ is also a Nāyaṉmār. He is said to have ascended to Kailāsa on a white elephant.

👁️Kaṇṇapparthe hunter of Kāḷahasti

Hagiography The hunter Tiṇṇaṉ knew no rules of worship. He offered the liṅgam meat he had tasted first and bathed it with water carried in his mouth. When he saw blood flowing from the liṅgam’s eye, he plucked out his own eye to replace it; when the other eye bled, he set his foot on the spot to mark it and began to cut out his second — and Shiva stopped his hand. The story is the tradition’s great argument that love outranks correct ritual.

🔥Nantaṉārfrom beyond the temple walls

A labourer of the Pulaiyar community, barred from entering temples. Hagiography At Tiruppuṅkūr, Shiva moved the great Nandi aside so that Nantaṉār could see him from the road. At Chidambaram he was told to pass through fire, and emerged as a radiant sage before entering the shrine. Gopalakrishna Bharati’s 19th-century musical drama Nandanār Caritram made him famous again. How to read the fire — as grace, or as the price caste demanded — is discussed on Varna & Jati.

Some of the stories are meant to shock. Ciṟuttoṇṭar cooks his only son for a wandering Shaiva ascetic; Iyaṟpakai gives away his wife when asked. In each case Shiva reveals himself and restores what was given. The commentators read them as tales of total self-offering, not as models for conduct — and most devotees today hear them that way too.

Here is the hymn the child Sambandar is said to have sung by the tank — the first verse of the whole Tirumurai:

தோடுடைய செவியன் விடையேறியோர் தூவெண் மதிசூடிக்
காடுடைய சுடலைப் பொடிபூசியென் உள்ளங் கவர்கள்வன் tōṭuṭaiya ceviyaṉ viṭaiyēṟiyōr tūveṇ maticūṭik / kāṭuṭaiya cuṭalaip poṭipūci eṉ uḷḷaṅ kavar kaḷvaṉ He with the earring in his ear, riding the bull, crowned with the pure white moon, smeared with ash from the cremation ground in the wild — he is the thief who has stolen my heart. Campantar, Tēvāram, Tirumurai 1.1.1, opening lines

The saints and the Jains

The Tēvāram poets defined themselves partly against the Jains and Buddhists, who were powerful in Tamil country. Periya Purāṇam The best-known story is Sambandar’s contest with the Jains at Madurai, after which, the text says, the defeated monks were impaled; the story, and what historians make of it, is told on Jaina Philosophy.

Māṇikkavācakar, outside the list

One of the four great Shaiva poets — the nālvar, “the four,” whose images stand together in many temples — is not among the sixty-three. Māṇikkavācakar, “he whose words are rubies,” is usually dated to the 9th century, though some place him earlier. Hagiography A minister of the Pāṇṭiya king, he was sent with treasury gold to buy horses, met Shiva as a guru under a tree at Tirupperunturai, and spent the money building a temple. Imprisoned and tortured, he was rescued when Shiva turned jackals into horses — and back again — and flooded the Vaigai. The story is told in the later Tiruviḷaiyāṭal Purāṇam. His Tiruvācakam opens with the five syllables:

நமச்சிவாய வாழ்க நாதன்தாள் வாழ்க
இமைப்பொழுதும் என்நெஞ்சில் நீங்காதான் தாள்வாழ்க namaccivāya vāḻka nātaṉ tāḷ vāḻka / imaippoḻutum eṉ neñcil nīṅkātāṉ tāḷ vāḻka Hail Namaśivāya! Hail the feet of the Lord! Hail the feet of him who never leaves my heart, not even for the blink of an eye! Māṇikkavācakar, Tiruvācakam 1 (Civapurāṇam), lines 1–2

The twelve Āḻvārs

Tradition dates the first Āḻvārs to the dawn of the Kali age, thousands of years BCE; historians place them, like the Nāyaṉmārs, between about the 6th and the 9th centuries. (Some early lists count ten, treating Āṇṭāḷ and Maturakavi separately.) Tap each to meet them:

Nammāḻvār is the heart of Śrīvaiṣṇava devotion. Hagiography As a baby he did not cry or feed, and was left in the hollow of a tamarind tree at the temple of Kurukūr (today Alvar Tirunagari), where he sat silent in meditation for sixteen years — until Maturakavi asked him a riddle, and he answered. His Tiruvāymoḻi begins:

உயர்வற உயர்நலம் உடையவன் யவனவன்
மயர்வற மதிநலம் அருளினன் யவனவன்
அயர்வறும் அமரர்கள் அதிபதி யவனவன்
துயரறு சுடரடி தொழுதெழென் மனனே uyarvaṟa uyarnalam uṭaiyavaṉ yavaṉavaṉ / mayarvaṟa matinalam aruḷiṉaṉ yavaṉavaṉ / ayarvaṟum amararkaḷ atipati yavaṉavaṉ / tuyaraṟu cuṭaraṭi toḻuteḻeṉ maṉaṉē Who is he whose goodness is highest, with none above it? Who is he who cleared my confusion and gave me wisdom and love? Who is he, lord of the never-wearying immortals? Bow to his radiant feet that end all sorrow, and rise, my mind! Nammāḻvār, Tiruvāymoḻi 1.1.1

The Āḻvārs’ caste-crossing is remembered with pride. Hagiography Tiruppāṇāḻvār would stand on the far bank of the Kaveri singing to Ranganātha, not allowed nearer. The priest Lōkasāraṅga, ordered by the Lord in a dream, carried him on his shoulders into the shrine, where he sang his ten verses, Amalaṉātipirāṉ, and merged with the image. The story honours the outcaste; it also shows that he needed a Brahmin to carry him in. And Ramanuja’s tradition, which grew from these poets, called the Vēḷāḷa Nammāḻvār “our” teacher and placed his Tamil beside the Sanskrit Veda — see Vishishtadvaita and The Great Acharyas.

The Siddhars

The Siddhars (cittar, “the accomplished”) are the Tamil saints who refused to behave. Tradition counts eighteen — Agattiyar, Tirumūlar, Bōkar, Pāmpāṭṭi, Civavākkiyar, Iṭaikkāṭar and others — though the lists disagree about who the eighteen are. Their songs are hard to date; much of what survives is probably later medieval, gathered into popular collections such as the Cittar Pāṭalkaḷ.

Their themes are the body as the true temple, breath and yoga as the way to Shiva, and scorn for idols, caste, Brahmin ritual and empty pilgrimage. Civavākkiyar mocks the man who sets up a stone, decks it with flowers and calls it God. Pāmpāṭṭi, “snake-charmer,” addresses his own mind as a dancing snake. Some poems are shockingly blunt; others are deep mystical riddles. They are also linked with alchemy and with Siddha medicine, still practised in Tamil Nadu and the diaspora. Popular tradition Bōkar is said to have made the Palani image of Murugan from nine poisons that heal, and Siddhars’ tombs (jīva-samādhi) are honoured inside great temples. Tirumūlar of the Tirumantiram is claimed both by the Siddhars and by Shaiva Siddhānta, as the Shaiva Siddhanta page explains.

Avvaiyār — or several

To Tamil children she is simply Avvai pāṭṭi, “grandmother Avvai.” Historians see at least two, perhaps three, poets behind the name. One is a Sangam poet, author of poems in the classical anthologies and friend of the chieftain Atiyamāṉ, who gave her a rare nelli fruit said to grant long life. Another, perhaps a thousand years later, wrote the short moral primers every Tamil schoolchild learns: Ātticcūṭi, Koṉṟai Vēntaṉ, Mūturai and Nalvaḻi. The Ātticcūṭi runs through the alphabet, one tiny maxim per letter, starting அறம் செய விரும்பு (aṟam ceya virumpu), “long to do good.” Popular tradition In a favourite story Murugan, disguised as a cowherd boy, asks her whether she wants “roasted fruit or unroasted” — and teaches the wise old woman a lesson in humility. The Vināyakar Akaval, a hymn to Ganesha attributed to an Avvaiyār, is recited in many homes.

Later saints

Aruṇakirinātar (15th century), poet of the Tiruppukaḻ, is introduced on Tamil Sacred Literature and Murugan.

Tāyumāṉavar (c. 1705–1742, dates approximate) was born at Vedaraniyam and served as an official at the Nāyaka court of Tiruchirappalli before renouncing it under a silent teacher, the Mauna Guru. His songs bring Vedānta and Shaiva Siddhānta together in what he called camaracam, “harmony,” and are loved for their gentleness:

எல்லாரும் இன்புற்றிருக்க நினைப்பதுவே
அல்லாமல் வேறொன்றறியேன் பராபரமே ellārum iṉpuṟṟirukka niṉaippatuvē / allāmal vēṟoṉṟaṟiyēṉ parāparamē To wish that all may dwell in happiness — beyond this I know nothing, O Supreme. Tāyumāṉavar, Parāparakkaṇṇi

Vaḷḷalār, Irāmaliṅka Aṭikaḷ (1823–1874), was born at Marudur near Chidambaram and grew up in Chennai as a devotee of Murugan. His mature teaching, Caṉmārkkam, rejected caste, animal sacrifice and meat, and put compassion for every living thing (jīvakāruṇyam) at the centre of religion. Most quoted of all is his confession that whenever he saw a withering crop, he withered too — வாடிய பயிரைக் கண்ட போதெல்லாம் வாடினேன். At Vadalur he opened a free kitchen in 1867, whose fire, devotees say, has never gone out, and later built an octagonal hall where God is worshipped as light, the Aruṭperuñjōti; on Tai Pūcam the light is shown behind seven curtains. His songs, the Tiruvaruṭpā, “songs of grace,” provoked the Jaffna Shaiva reformer Āṟumuka Nāvalar, who denounced them as maruṭpā, “songs of delusion” — a bitter quarrel that even reached the courts. In January 1874 Vaḷḷalār entered a room at Mettukuppam and was never seen again. Popular tradition His followers believe he merged into light.

Honoured today

Each Nāyaṉmār has a guru pūjai, an annual day of worship on the lunar star of his or her death — when the saint’s image is bathed, decorated and sung to with their own hymns. Śrīvaiṣṇava temples keep the Āḻvārs’ birth-stars in the same way, and Āṇṭāḷ’s wedding to Ranganātha is celebrated at Srivilliputtur.

Community practice In Malaysia, many Shaiva temples display the sixty-three in the corridor and mark the main guru pūjais; Tēvāram classes teach children the nālvar’s hymns; Vishnu temples hold Tiruppāvai through Mārkaḻi; and Vaḷḷalār’s Caṉmārkkam followers keep their own gatherings and feeding programmes. Practice varies from temple to temple.

Check your knowledge:

Quick check

Which great Shaiva poet is not one of the sixty-three Nāyaṉmārs?

Māṇikkavācakar is one of the “four” (nālvar), but not in the list of sixty-three.

The hymn that became the seed of the Periya Purāṇam was written by…

Sundarar’s Tiruttoṇṭattokai names the devotees; Sekkiḻār wrote their lives four centuries later.

Which Āḻvār was carried into the Srirangam shrine on a priest’s shoulders?

Tiruppāṇ, a Pāṇar minstrel kept outside the temple.

Vaḷḷalār’s teaching put at its centre…

Jīvakāruṇyam — and a free kitchen at Vadalur to prove it.

Questions people often ask

Did these miracles really happen?

The hagiographies were written centuries after the saints, and historians cannot confirm their miracles. Devotees read them as true in the way that matters most — as revelations of grace. You can hold both: the poems are historical evidence of real people; the stories are the tradition’s way of saying what those people meant.

Why are there so few women?

Three of sixty-three, and one of twelve. Women’s lives were mostly confined to the household, and the hagiographers were men at royal and monastic courts. Yet the women who were remembered — Kāraikkāl Ammaiyār, Āṇṭāḷ, Avvaiyār — are among the most powerful voices in Tamil, and two of them broke every expectation of how a woman should look or whom she should marry.

Are the Siddhars Hindu?

They used Hindu language — Shiva, yoga, the guru — while attacking much of Hindu practice. Shaivas honour some of them as saints; rationalist and Dravidian movements in the 20th century admired their attacks on caste and Brahmin ritual. Both claims have something to them.

॥ Pause and reflect

  1. Kaṇṇappar broke every rule and was loved for it. When does love matter more than doing things correctly — and when doesn’t it?
  2. Kāraikkāl Ammaiyār gave up her beauty; Āṇṭāḷ refused every human husband. What would it cost you to put devotion first?
  3. Vaḷḷalār withered when the crops withered. Whose suffering do you feel as your own?

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Sources & further reading