page_title: Tevaram
section_title: Compilation
hierarchical_section_title: Tevaram / Compilation
caption_attribution_description: English: Nalvar, Thirukkarugavur
context_page_description: The Dēvāram denotes the first seven volumes of the Tirumurai, the twelve-volume collection of Śaiva devotional poetry. These volumes contain the works of the three most prominent Tamil poets of the 7th and 8th centuries: Sambandar, Appar, and Sundarar. The three poets were not only involved in portraying their personal devotion to Shiva, but also engaged a community of believers through their songs, and their work is an important source for understanding the emergence of the Bhakti movement in early medieval South India.
  In the 10th century, during the reign of Rajaraja I of the Chola dynasty, these poets' hymns were collected and arranged by Nambiyandar Nambi. Saivism came of age alongside the expansion and consolidation of Chola imperial power from the 11th to 14th centuries, and the Tirumurai–with its body of texts on rituals, philosophy, and theology–was canonized during this period. Thevaram contains 796 hymns made up of more than 8,200 stanzas, and the singing of these hymns continues today as a devotional practice in many Shiva temples in Tamil Nadu.
context_section_description: Raja Raja Chola I (985-1013 CE) embarked on a mission to recover the hymns after hearing short excerpts of Tevaram in his court. He sought the help of Nambi Andar Nambi, who was a priest in a temple. It is believed that by divine intervention Nambi found the presence of scripts, in the form of cadijam leaves half eaten by white ants in a chamber inside the second precinct of the Chidambaram Nataraja temple.  The brahmanas (Dikshitars) in the temple opposed the mission, but Rajaraja intervened by consecrating the images of the saint-poets through the streets of Chidambaram.  Rajaraja thus became to be known as Tirumurai Kanda Cholan meaning "one who saved the Tirumurai".  Thus far Shiva temples only had images of god forms, but after the advent of Rajaraja, the images of the Nayanar saints were also placed inside the temple.
  Nambi arranged the hymns of three saint-poets Sambandar, Appar and Sundarar as the first seven books, Manikkavacakar's Tirukovayar and Tiruvacakam as the eighth book, the 28 hymns of nine other saints as the ninth book, the Tirumandiram of Tirumular as the tenth book, and 40 hymns by 12 other poets, Tirutotanar Tiruvanthathi–the sacred anthathi of the labours of the 63 Nayanar saints–and Nambi's own hymns as the eleventh book. The first seven books were later called as Tevaram, and the whole Saiva canon, which came to include Sekkizhar's Periya Puranam (1135 CE) as the twelfth volume, is wholly known as Tirumurai, "the holy book". Thus Saiva literature which covers about 600 years of religious, philosophical and literary development.
  Nambi was also involved in setting musical modes for Tevaram. He accomplished this by visiting the native village of Tiru Nilakanta Yazhpanar, where he met a woman of the Tamil Panar caste who learned the mode of divine revelation. She returned to Chidambaram with Nambi, where she sang and danced for Shiva.
  In 1918, 11 more songs were found engraved in stone temple in Tiruvidavayil in a village close to Nannilam, and it was the first instance found where Tevaram verses were found in inscriptions.
caption: The 3 foremost Nayanars with Manikkavasakar - collectively called the Naalvar: (from left) Sambandar, Tirunavukkarasar, Sundarar, Manikkavacakar.
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