Nambiyandar Nambi

Shaiva scholar of Tamil Nadu in South India who compiled the hymns of Sambandar, Appar and Sundarar and was himself one of the authors of the eleventh volume of the canon of the Tamil liturgical poetry of Shiva, the Tirumurai.^[1]

Rajaraja Chola, as ராசா ராசா மன்னவன் அபயகுல சேகரன் requested him to collect the hymns of the three great poet-saints Sambandar, Appar and Sundarar. Nambi managed to get palm-leaf manuscripts of the hymns, though some had been eaten away by termites. They were able to recover around ten percent of the entire set of hymns. Nambi also wrote a memoir of the lives of the sixty-three great devotees mentioned by Suntarar; the Tiruttondar Tiruvandhadhi. His hymns in praise of Sambandar and Appar

Sekkizhar's Periya Puranam (1135 CE) is wholly known as Tirumurai, the holy book. Thus Saiva literature which covers about 600 years of religious, philosophical and literary development.^[6]