A History of South India from Prehistoric Times to the Fall of Vijayanagar c19.s2.7

c19.s2.7

Perhaps the earliest author in the group whose works have entered the Śaiva canon is Kāraikkāl Ammai, ‘the woman of Kāraikkāl’. Tradition makes her the contemporary of Pūdam, one of the early āḻvārs, and both may be assigned to about 550. The Ammai sang the praises of the deity of Tiruvālangāḍu where she witnessed the dance of Śiva. The two other poems she wrote which mark the beginning of Prabandha literature in Tamil—a genre which counted in course of time no fewer than ninety-six types—are Tiru-iraṭṭai-maṇi-mālai with twenty pairs of stanzas each including a kaḷittuṟai verse and a veṇbā and the Adbhutat-tiruvandādi of 100 veṇbā verses. Next comes Aiyaḍigaḷ Kāḍavarkōn who is reputed to have handed over the rule of his principality to his son and devoted himself to a religious life. His Kshetrattiru-veṇbā is an andādi (a poem in which the last word or syllable of one verse recurs at the beginning of the next) and contains a list of twenty-one Śaiva shrines including Ujjain (Mākāḷam) which were held in esteem in his day. The 307 padigams (hymns) of Appar constitute books 4-6 of the Śaiva canon. They contain many notable anticipations of the Śaiva-siddhānta philosophical system; the intensity of devotion that characterizes them is excelled only in the Tiruvāśagam of Māṇikka-vāśagar. Ñānasambandar, the most celebrated Śaiva hymnist, heads the canon, and 384 hymns sung by him constitute its first three sections. It is said that he began singing hymns of his own composition at the age of three, and that he met Appar and Śiruṭṭoṇḍar in person, but the story of his meeting with the Vaishnava saint Tirumangai seems to be no more than a beautiful legend. Sambandar’s hymns are marked by an exceptionally high literary quality, but towards the end of each one the Buddhists and Jains come in for round denunciation—evidence of the most active part he took in the campaign against the heretical faiths.