The Colas c33.9

c33.9

It were cruel and futile to dissect such fanciful tales with the weapons of historical criticism. In its integrity, this story is typical of the Indian way of keeping fresh the memory of great men and their deeds. It justifies the inference that the Vaiṣṇava canon was arranged and its musical modes settled by the first great Ācārya of the second great division in the history of Vaiṣṇavism in South India, the one that falls between the age of the hymns and that of the great commentators that followed long after Rāmānuja.¹³ The mention of Tiru-Vāymoḻidēvar in an inscription at Ukkal in Rājarāja's reign, and of the recitation of Tiruppadiyam in Viṣṇu temples is enough to show the parallelism in practice between Śaivism and Vaiṣṇavism in this respect. Two inscriptions of the reign of Rājēndra I from Uttaramērūr provide for the distribution of the food offered to the deity among Śrī-Vaiṣṇavas reciting Tiruppadiyam during worship,¹⁴ and create an endowment of land for the maintenance of three persons who were to recite *Tiruvāymoḻi* regularly in the temple.¹⁵ The recitation of *Tiruvāymoḻi* during *tiruppaḷḷi-yeḷucci* in the Śrīrangam temple is provided for in a record of a.d. 1085.¹⁶ The fact that the hymn of Kulaśēkhara-āḻvār beginning *tēṭṭarundiral* was recited before the deity during three nights in the course of a festival in Śrīrangam is mentioned in an inscription of a.d. 1088¹⁷. The recitation of *Tiruvāymoḻi* during the festivals in the months of Arpiśi (October-November) and Vaigāśi (May-June) at Tirukkōyilūr is provided for in an inscription of the eighth year of Rājādhirāja II, A.D. 1171¹⁸ A choir of fifty-eight Brahmins reciting *Tirumoḻi* in Kāñcī is mentioned in A.D. 1242.¹⁹ An inscription from Tirukkōyilūr, of uncertain date, records an endowment for the recitation of *Tiruneḍun-dāṇḍagam* in the local Viṣṇu temple.²⁰ Lastly, an inscription perhaps of Kulōttunga III, mentions the creation at Kāñcīpuram of a *bhāṣya-vṛtti* for the Rāmānuja-bhāṣya being regularly expounded by a competent person.²¹ And these instances are by no means exhaustive.