Sage Tirumular

Tirumular was a Tamil Shaivite mystic and writer who was regarded as one of the 18 Siddhars and sixty-three Nayanmars. The Tirumantiram, also known as the Tirumanthiram, Tirumandhiram, and so on, was his primary work. which comprises of north of 3000 refrains, frames a piece of the vital text of the Tamil Shaiva Siddhanta, the Tirumurai. Because his work makes reference to so many currents of religious thought, the dates that various scholars assign to Tirumular are frequently used to anchor the relative chronology of other Tamil and Sanskrit literature. The dates of Tirumular's life are contentious. According to verse 74 of the Tirumantiram, Tirumular lived for seven yugams before writing the document. As a result, some people tend to place his work well before the Common Era. However, the scholar and lexicographer S. Vaiyapuripillai suggested that Tirumular could not be placed earlier because he appears to refer to the Tevaram hymns of Sambandar, Appar, and Sundarar, uses "very late words," and mentions weekdays. He also said that Tirumular probably belonged to the beginning of the eighth century CE

Others want to move the date even further out: Dominic Goodall, for instance, appears to suggest that the Tirumantiram cannot be placed prior to the 11th or 12th century CED on the basis of religious notions that appear in the work with Sanskrit labels for which a certain historical development can be traced in other datable works. Another point of view, which Vaiyapuripillai (ibid.) makes reference to, is that, despite having "a good number of interpolated stanzas" from later on, the text may have an ancient core. In any case, it is currently impossible to use allusions to works and ideas in the Tirumantiram as useful indicators of their chronology. Sundara Nathar, as the saint is known, was a Yogi originally from Madurai (now South Madurai, Tamil Nadu). He traveled to Mount Kailaayam, also known as Mount Kailash, where he was directly initiated by Lord Sivan, also known as Lord Shiva. After spending five years at Mount Kailaayam, he went on an expedition under Sivan's direction to Thamizhakam (Tamil Nadu, ancient Tamil Nadu) to meet his contemporary sage friend Sage Agathiyar in the Pothigai Hills (Pothiya Malai, ancient Tamil land). After meeting Agathiyar, he went to Chidambaram and worshiped Lord Natarajar at the Nataraja Temple. He was about to When he got close to the cows, he found that Moolan, their cowherd, had died from a snake bite. He was extremely moved by seeing the cows that he sobbed in distress and chose to utilize his Oham (yogic power) and move his spirit from his body to that of the dead cowherd's, leaving his own body inside a tree log. The cows were content when they found themselves in the body of the cowherd; After that, he led them to the village. After that, he went back to the spot where he left his body to get back into it. His actual body had vanished from the tree log, and he had no idea where it was. He was told that he was the one who caused his body to vanish when he heard a divine voice from the sky, Lord Sivan. Sundara Nathar was told by Lord Sivan that he did that because Lord Sivan wanted Sundara Nathar to pass on his teachings throughout Moolan; Moolan's body's simple dialect of a cowherd man using the Tamil language would enlighten everyone, as opposed to Sundara Nathar's body, which would have used an advanced and literary version of the Tamil language that would have been very difficult for the common people to understand and comprehend. As a result, from that point forward, he was referred to as Thirumoolar (derived from Moolar, the cowherd's name; Thiru is a prefix that means "respected." He was profoundly drenched in thapam (contemplation) under a peepul tree in Thiruvavaduthurai and got sacred songs in Tamil. The book Tirumantiram contains documentation of 3,000 sacred hymns.