Tevaram

Common card · No. 490454

The Tevaram (Tamil: தேவாரம், Tēvāram), also spelled Thevaram, denotes the first seven volumes of the twelve-volume collection Tirumurai, a Shaiva narrative of epic and Puranic heroes, as well as a hagiographic account of early Shaiva saints set in devotional poetry. The Tevaram volumes contain the works of the three most prominent Shaiva Tamil saints of the 7th and 8th centuries: Sambandar, Appar, and Sundarar. The three saints were not only involved in portraying their personal devotion to Shiva, but also engaged a community of believers through their songs. Their work is an important source for understanding the Shaiva Bhakti movement in the early medieval South India. In the 10th century, during the reign of Rajaraja I of the Chola dynasty, these saints' hymns were collected and arranged by Nambiyandar Nambi. Starting with the Tevaram along with the rest of Tirumurai and ending with the Periya Puranam, Tamil Shaivism acquired a canonical set of sacred texts on ritual, philosophy, and...

Read on Wikipedia · Image Vidaikodiselvar S. Danabala, CC BY-SA 4.0