The Colas c9.20

c9.20

Equally remarkable is the settlement of the Vaiṣṇava canon of the 'Four Thousand Sacred Hymns' which took place about the same time as the Śaiva canon was fixed by Nambi Āṇḍār Nambi. The *Divya sūri-carita* and the *Guruparamparai* form the Vaiṣṇava counterpart of the *Periya Purāṇam* from which they differ in providing an elaborate, though impossible, chronology for the lives of the Vaiṣṇava saints, the Āḻvārs. In addition to being a record of traditions and beliefs prevalent at the time of their composition, these works furnish the background necessary for a proper estimate of Rāmānuja and his place in the history of Vaiṣṇavism. And the great commentaries on the hymns of the Āḻvārs, written in a peculiar jargon more Sanskrit than Tamil, though perhaps of a slightly later age than the Cōḻa period, still have great value for us, as they record in a casual manner several incidents of Cōḻa times. This feature, as well as the idiosyncrasies of language that mark these commentaries, sometimes assist us in elucidating the Cōḻa inscriptions.