Tirumular

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Murti of Tirumular
Om symbol
Om symbol
Tirumurai
Om symbol in Tamil
Om symbol in Tamil
The twelve volumes of Tamil Śaiva hymns of the sixty-three Nayanars
Parts Name Author
1,2,3 Thirukadaikkappu Sambandar
4,5,6 Thevaram
Thirunavukkarasar
7 Thirupaatu Sundarar
8
Thirukkovaiyar
Manickavasagar
9
Thiruvisaippa
&
Tiruppallaandu		 Various
10
Thirumandhiram
Thirumular
11 Various
12 Periya Puranam
Sekkizhar
Paadal Petra Sthalam
Paadal Petra Sthalam
Rajaraja I
Nambiyandar Nambi

Tirumular (

Shaivite mystic and writer, considered one of the sixty-three poet-saints called the Nayanars, and is listed among a group of 18 sages called the Siddhars. His magnum opus, the Tirumantiram, consisting of over 3000 verses, forms a part of the key text of the Tamil Shaiva Siddhanta compilation called the Tirumurai
.

Chronology

The dates of Tirumular's life are controversial, and because his work makes reference to so many currents of religious thought, the dates that different scholars assign are often appealed to for anchoring the relative chronology of other literature in Tamil and Sanskrit. Verse 74 of the Tirumantiram makes the claim that Tirumular lived for 7 yugas (ages) before composing the Tirumantiram.[1]

Some are therefore inclined to place his composition well before the Common Era. The scholar and lexicographer S. Vaiyapuripillai, however, suggested that he probably belonged to the beginning of the eighth-century CE, pointing out that Tirumular could not very well be placed earlier given that he appears to refer to the Tevaram hymns of Sambandar, Appar, and Sundarar, that he used "very late words" and that he made mention of the weekdays.[2]

Others wish to push the date still later: Dominic Goodall, for instance, appears to suggest, on the grounds of religious notions that appear in the work with Tamil labels for which a certain historical development can be traced in other datable works, that the Tirumantiram cannot be placed before the 11th- or 12th-century CED.[3] Yet another view, alluded to for instance by Vaiyapuripillai (ibid.), is that the text may contain an ancient core, but with "a good number of interpolated stanzas" of later date. Whatever the case, allusions to works and ideas in the Tirumantiram cannot, at least for the moment, be used as useful indicators of their chronology.[citation needed]

Legend

Suntaranāthar,

peepal tree in Thiruvavaduthurai
, receiving holy hymns in Tamil. These three thousand holy hymns were compiled to become the book called the Tirumantiram.

See also

References

  1. ^ Tirumantiram A Tamil scriptural Classic. By Tirumular. Tamil Text with English Translation and Notes, B. Natarajan. Madras, Sri Ramakrishna Math, 1991, p.12.
  2. ^ Vaiyapuripillai's History of Tamil Language and Literature (From the Beginning to 1000 A.D.), Madras, New Century Book House, 1988 (after the first edition of 1956), particularly footnote 1 on p.78.
  3. ^ See pp.xxix-xxx in a Preface (entitled Explanatory remarks about the Śaiva Siddhānta and its treatment in modern secondary literature) to The Parākhyatantra. A Scripture of the Śaiva Siddhānta, Dominic Goodall, Pondicherry, French Institute of Pondicherry and Ecole française d'Extrême-Orient, 2004.
  4. ISBN 9781365471681
    .

External links
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