South Indian Bronzes: A Historical Survey of South Indian Sculpture with Iconographical Notes Based on Original Sources c7.11

c7.11

The next important names in the history of South Indian Saivaism are St. Appar and St. Tiru-Jnan Sambandha whose joint efforts virtually dealt the deathblow to the ascendency of Jainism and Buddhism in the South. They lived about the seventh century, the first named being older than his associates. St. Appar in his early life had embraced Jainism and assumed the name of Devasena in the Jaina Sangha which he subsequently left and then reverted to his ancestral faith. He was severely persecuted by his former co-religionists and the Jaina King, but he escaped miraculously from all his adventures. "Thereafter he commenced his peregrinations from shrine to shrine meeting devotees everywhere and confirming them in the faith and enacting sundry miracles, but above all uttering things, and leading a life of extreme simplicity and purity which must have won for him more adherents than all his miracles. The hymns which he composed with reference to the various Saiva shrines which he visited and hallowed with his name are collected in the famous poems called *Devāram* (Garland of praises for God). They are undoubtedly the best devotional lyrics of South India which have won for him the reputation as the greatest master of the Tamil poetry of the century. His visit to Chidambaram has added a special spiritual charm to that famous Saivaite shrine the courtyards of which he weeded with his hoe, as he went on circumambulating the temple. He is very often represented with hands joined in prayer with the weeding implement resting on his left arm (*vide* plate LXLI). As to the spiritual value of his compositions these are popularly known and honoured as the "Written Vedas" as opposed to the Srutis or 'unwritten Vedas' which he made accessible to all people without distinction of caste or creed." This is very well indicated in a parable attributed to St. Appar. He visited a temple in Vedaranyam the front gates of the shrines of which were kept closed. The reason assigned by tradition was that God was worshipped there originally by the Vedas themselves, and they had shut the gates after them. St. Appar at the request of St. Tiru-Jnan Sambandha sang out some hymns which unlocked the gates of the mysterious shrine amidst the music of the heavens and the praises of thousands of devotees. Vedāranyam was originally a *vedic* colony where Agastya the head of the Brahmin emigrants had his hermitage. "There is a simple lesson," says Mr. Nallaswami Pillai, "to be gathered from this incident. Owing to the decay of learning and knowledge in course of time and owing to the encroachments of other religions and influences the Vedas and Upanishads in which all the learning and religion of the Brahmans were stored literally remained locked up" until these Saiva saints opened their portals again.