Round 2 of 9 · அடியார்களும் அவர்கள் பாடல்களும்
The saints and their songs
The sixty-three Nayanmars, and the four whose hymns are sung in every temple: Sambandar, Appar, Sundarar and Manikkavasagar.
You have walked ahead of your lamps
You are welcome here, and may read on. These lamps on the rounds below are not yet lit; this round will open more fully once they are:
The second circuit is complete: you have met the sixty-three, and heard the four who sang.
Next, the places where they sang: the temples, the festivals, and the people who keep the songs alive.
The circuit is not yet complete
The lotus of this round blooms when all its lamps are lit. Still to light:
Look back on this roundWhat it holds, its lamps and gems, and its inner path
Sixty-three lives, from kings to potters, and the four saints whose songs are sung in every temple.
The Periya Puranam, the twelfth Tirumurai, tells the lives of the sixty-three Nayanmars. Some were kings and some were hunters; some were priests and some were washermen; some were women. What they share is not birth, learning or wealth, but a love for Siva that shaped everything they did.
Four of them step forward on this round: Sambandar, Appar and Sundarar, whose hymns make up the Tevaram, and Manikkavasagar, whose Tiruvasagam opens with the Sivapuranam that so many say every day. One volume of each singer is here; the rest of their songs wait on the fourth round.
The path climbs · Round 3
Sacred places
The temples the saints sang, the dance at Chidambaram, the festivals, and the people who keep the songs and the teaching alive.