5 minutes

The songs, the books and the saints

The tradition has songs, books and people. Knowing who is who makes every later page easier.

✦The songs: twelve Tirumurais

The Tirumurais are twelve collections of sacred poetry. The first seven are the Tevaram, the hymns of Sambandar, Appar and Sundarar, still sung in temples every day. Then come Manikkavasagar's Tiruvasagam, the hymns of later poets, Tirumular's Tirumantiram, forty shorter works, and Sekkizhar's Periya Puranam, the lives of the saints.

✦The books: fourteen Sastras

The fourteen Meykanda Sastras set out the doctrine by reasoning. At their centre is Meykandar's Sivagnana Bodham: twelve short sutras that hold the whole philosophy.

✦The people

✦Where to go next

That is the whole tradition in outline. The rest of this round gives the few words everything else is built on: Pati, Pasu and Pasam; grace; the four ways and freedom. Then it shows where Siddhanta is lived: the five syllables, worship at home, and the temple. After that the path climbs:

• The saints and their songs. The next round: the sixty-three Nayanmars, and the four whose hymns are sung in every temple.
• Higher still. The sacred places and festivals, the whole Tirumurai, and then, slowly, the doctrine and the books of the philosophy. The rest of the path will show itself as you walk.

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