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Tirumular (also spelt Thirumoolar etc., originally known as Suntaranāthar) was a
Tamil Tamil may refer to: * Tamils, an ethnic group native to India and some other parts of Asia ** Sri Lankan Tamils, Tamil people native to Sri Lanka also called ilankai tamils **Tamil Malaysians, Tamil people native to Malaysia * Tamil language, nati ...
Shaivite mystic and writer, considered one of the sixty-three
Nayanmars The Nayanars (or Nayanmars; ta, நாயன்மார், translit=Nāyaṉmār, translit-std=ISO, lit=hounds of Siva, and later 'teachers of Shiva ) were a group of 63 Tamil Hindu saints living during the 6th to 8th centuries CE who were de ...
and one of the 18 Siddhars. His main work, the '' Tirumantiram'' (also sometimes written ''Tirumanthiram'', ''Tirumandhiram'', etc.), which consists of over 3000 verses, forms a part of the key text of the Tamil Shaiva Siddhanta, the '' Tirumurai''.


Chronology

The dates of Tirumular's life are controversial, and because his work makes reference to so many currents of religious thought, the dates that different scholars assign are often appealed to for anchoring the relative chronology of other literature in Tamil and Sanskrit. Verse 74 of the ''Tirumantiram'' makes the claim that Tirumular lived for 7 ''yugams'' before composing the ''Tirumantiram''.''Tirumantiram A Tamil scriptural Classic. By Tirumular. Tamil Text with English Translation and Notes'', B. Natarajan. Madras, Sri Ramakrishna Math, 1991, p.12. Some are therefore inclined to place his composition well before the Common Era. The scholar and lexicographer S. Vaiyapuripillai, however, suggested that he probably belonged to the beginning of the eighth-century CE, pointing out that Tirumular could not very well be placed earlier given that he appears to refer to the '' Tevaram'' hymns of Sambandar, Appar and
Sundarar Sundarar (Tamil: சுந்தரர்), also referred to as Chuntarar, Chuntaramurtti, Nampi Aruran or Tampiran Tolan, was an eighth-century poet-saint of Tamil Shaiva Siddhanta tradition of Hinduism. He is among the Tevaram trio, and one o ...
, that he used "very late words" and that he made mention of the weekdays.''Vaiyapuripillai's History of Tamil Language and Literature (From the Beginning to 1000 A.D.)'', Madras, New Century Book House, 1988 (after the first edition of 1956), particularly footnote 1 on p.78. Others wish to push the date still later: Dominic Goodall, for instance, appears to suggest, on the grounds of religious notions that appear in the work with Sanskrit labels for which a certain historical development can be traced in other datable works, that the ''Tirumantiram'' cannot be placed before the 11th- or 12th-century CED.See pp.xxix-xxx in a Preface (entitled ''Explanatory remarks about the Śaiva Siddhānta and its treatment in modern secondary literature'') to ''The Parākhyatantra. A Scripture of the Śaiva Siddhānta'', Dominic Goodall, Pondicherry, French Institute of Pondicherry and Ecole française d'Extrême-Orient, 2004. Yet another view, alluded to for instance by Vaiyapuripillai (''ibid.''), is that the text may contain an ancient core, but with "a good number of interpolated stanzas" of later date. Whatever the case, allusions to works and ideas in the ''Tirumantiram'' cannot, at least for the moment, be used as useful indicators of their chronology.


History

Sundara Nathar, as the saint is known, was a Yogi originally from then Madurai (currently
South madurai South is one of the cardinal directions or compass points. The direction is the opposite of north and is perpendicular to both east and west. Etymology The word ''south'' comes from Old English ''sūþ'', from earlier Proto-Germanic ''*sunþaz ...
- Tamil Nadu) who travelled to Mount Kailaayam ( Mount Kailash) and was initiated directly by Lord Sivan ( Lord Shiva). After spending 5 years at Mount Kailaayam, he undertook a journey under the order of Sivan to Thamizhakam (Tamil homeland - ancient Tamil Nadu) to meet his contemporary sage friend Sage Agathiyar in
Pothigai Hills The Pothigai Hills, also known as Agasthiyar Mountain is a 1,866-metre (6,122 ft)-tall peak in the southern part of the Western Ghats of South India. The peak lies in Tirunelveli District of Tamil Nadu near the border of Kerala. The ar ...
(Pothiya Malai of ancient Tamil land) and after meeting Agathiyar he went to Chidambaram, and after worshiping Lord Natarajar at the Nataraja Temple, he was about to return to Kailaayam, and while on his way, near Sathanur village (a village near
Aaduthurai Maruthuvakudi, also known as Aduthurai is a small panchayat town situated near Kumbakonam,in the Thanjavur District in the Indian state of Tamil Nadu. It is the sub urban region of business city of Kumbakonam. Etymology Maruthuvakudi takes ...
of Cauveri Delta area), he saw a group of cows crying. He went near the cows to discover that their cowherd, Moolan, was dead, having been bitten by a snake. He was very touched by the sight of the cows that he wept in sorrow and decided to use his Oham (yogic power) and move his soul from his body to that of the dead cowherd's, leaving his own body inside a tree log. On waking up in the body of the cowherd, the cows became happy; then he navigated them to the village. He then returned to the place where he left his body, to return to his own body. To his surprise, his actual body had disappeared from the tree log, and was nowhere to be found. At this moment, he heard a divine voice from the sky (Lord Sivan) who told him that he was the one who made his body to disappear. Lord Sivan told him he did that because Lord Sivan wanted Sundara Nathar to spread his teachings through the body of Moolan; this way, every common person would get enlightened through the knowledge spread in Moolan's body, because of the simple dialect of a cowherd man using the Tamil Language compared to Sundara Nathar's own body which would have used an advanced and literary version of the Tamil language that would make it very difficult for the common people to understand and comprehend. Thus, from that day onwards he was known by the name of Thirumoolar (from Moolar, the name of the cowherd; the prefix Thiru means 'respected'). He was deeply immersed in thapam (meditation) under a
peepul tree ''Ficus religiosa'' or sacred fig is a species of fig native to the Indian subcontinent and Indochina that belongs to Moraceae, the fig or mulberry family. It is also known as the bodhi tree, pippala tree, peepul tree, peepal tree, pipal tree ...
in Thiruvavaduthurai and received holy hymns in Tamil. Three thousand holy hymns have been documented in the book called Tirumantiram. The exact years of these events are unknown.


See also

*
Agastya Agastya ( kn, ಅಗಸ್ತ್ಯ, ta, அகத்தியர், sa, अगस्त्य, te, అగస్త్యుడు, ml, അഗസ്ത്യൻ, hi, अगस्त्य) was a revered Indian sage of Hinduism. In the I ...
* Bogar *
Patanjali Patanjali ( sa, पतञ्जलि, Patañjali), also called Gonardiya or Gonikaputra, was a Hindu author, mystic and philosopher. Very little is known about him, and while no one knows exactly when he lived; from analysis of his works it i ...
* Thirumandhiram


References


External links


Thirumanthiram with Tamil explanation
— Tamil version of Thirumanthiram

— English version of Thirumanthiram {{Authority control Nayanars Shaivites Hindu philosophers and theologians Indian yogis