Thevaram Lyrics In Tamil Pdf
Levi Satterley
The Tevaram (Tamil: தவரம், 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.[1] The Tevaram volumes contain the works of the three most prominent Shaiva Tamil saints of the 7th and 8th centuries: Sambandar, Appar, and Sundarar.[2][3][4] 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.[5][6]
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 theology. This marked its coming of age alongside the expansion and consolidation of Chola imperial power in the 11th century CE.[7] Tevaram contains 796 hymns made up of 8,284 stanzas.[8] These hymns continue to be devotionally sung in contemporary times in many Shiva temples of Tamil Nadu.[9]
According to Champakalakshmi, there were at least three stages in the evolution of Tevaram: first was the composition of the hymns by the Tevaram trio, then these were adopted in temple rituals and festivals by patikam singers, and thereafter came a conscious 11th-century structuring of these poems into a canonized text. The last stage was assisted by the pontiffs of the mathas (monasteries) who incorporated the hymns into the Shaiva Siddhanta canon in the 13th century.[16]
Tevaram text has been called as a Shaiva "Tamil-vētam" (a Tamil Veda) in Volume 4 of the Madras Tamil Lexicon. This equivalence with the ancient Hindu Vedas has been explained by the Tamil Shaiva scholars in that the Tevaram "resembles the Vedic hymns" by being poetry of the "highest order" that also systematically builds the philosophical foundations of Shaivism. It differs from the ancient Vedas in that it focuses on intense bhakti for Shiva.[17]
The Tevaram helped structure a devotional tradition with its own authoritative canon, and thereby negated the primacy of Vedic orthodoxy and Smartha tradition, states Champakalakshmi.[18] Yet they extend rather than reject the Vedic tradition. The hymns, states Peterson, directly praise the four Vedas and Sanskrit, adding that devotion to Shiva is same as these. For example, in Appar VI.301.1, the Tevaram states "See him who is Sanskrit of the North, and southern Tamil, and the four Vedas". Such themes appear repeatedly in this text. Thus, Tevaram is not antagonistic to the Vedic tradition, it compliments and redirects the devotee to bhakti through songs and music, for the same spiritual pursuit.[19][note 2]
In their structure and focus, the patikams (praise poem) of the Tevaram are "closely associated with early Sanskrit strotas" of the types found in Bhagavad Gita, the Bharavi, some compositions of Kalidasa and some chapters of the epic Mahabharata, all dated between about the 2nd century BCE and the 5th century CE, states Peterson.[20] The melodic prosody, structure and genre that the Tevaram exemplifies has roots and illustrations in the Satarudriya of the Yajurveda, an ancient prototypical devotional hymn to Rudra-Shiva.[21]
According to Sabaratnam, the Tevaram verses were more oriented towards the folk tradition. It used the Tamil language and thus set aside the primacy of Sanskrit liturgies in religious matters. Tevaram made the direct devotion to Shiva more easily accessible to the people.[22]
The texts about the Tevaram trio are hagiographies full of mythistory where devotion leads to miracles, objects float upstream in a river, cruel Jains of the Chola kingdom repeatedly scheme to hurt and kill peaceful Shaiva saints in the Pandya kingdom, the Shiva devotees survive and thrive through divine interventions, magic cures people's diseases, stone statues spring to life to help the kind and gentle Shaiva people suffering persecution, gigantic forms of living animals such as cruel elephants become small peaceful stone statues, and other such events happen in the context of loving and intense devotion to Shiva.[28][29][note 4] This myth-filled context has created much controversy and speculations on their reliability, even the centuries in which these saints lived.[33][34]
Thirugnana Sambandar, sometimes spelled as Campantar or āṉacampantar, was born into a family of Shaiva Brahmins in Sirkazhi near Chidambaram. Little is known with any certainty about Sambandar actual life. The last hymns of Tevaram volume III provide some information. The Periya Puranam and Sundarar's Tiruttondartokai are additional early records and provide a comprehensive hagiography on him.[35] Other sources are the Nambiyandar Nambi's Tiru Tondar Tiruvandadi and a few inscriptions in Tamil Shiva temples about patikam singers that can be dated around the 9th century.[36]
In the Periya Puranam, Sambandar is said to have been a child prodigy, one who began composing hymns as soon as he started speaking as a baby and who mastered the Vedas by age three. His gifts were attributed to being breastfed by the Shakti goddess Umadevi.[37] As a child poet-saint, he attracted throngs of audiences, travelled through Tamil lands to Shiva temples accompanied by musician Tirunilakantayalppanar, composing melodious hymns in complex meters and rhythms.[37] The hymn III.345 of Tevaram depicts Jain monks persecuting him and trying to burn a palm-leaf manuscript of his hymn, but the fire does not burn it.[38]
On the request of queen Mangayarkkarasiyar, Sambandar went to Madurai to counter the Jain monks in her husband's court. There the Jain monks allegedly attempt to burn the house he was staying in, but he remains unharmed.[39][13] Then he is challenged to a debate by the Jain monks with the condition that the losing side convert to the winning side, or commit suicide by impaling themselves to death. Sambandar defeats the monks in debate, the Pandya king and some Jains convert to Shaivism. Other Jain monks die in Madurai of impalement in the aftermath.[29][40] Sambandar died around 655 CE at the age of 16, on the day of his wedding when Shiva met him and took his relatives and him to his abode.
The first three volumes of the Tirumurai contain 383 poems (some editions 384), composed of 4,181 stanzas, attributed to Sambandar, which are all that survive out of a reputed oeuvre of 16,000 hymns.[26] His verses were set to tune on yal or lute by Sambandar's constant companion Tiru Nilakanta Yazhpanar (Nilakantaperumanar).[26]
Unlike his sister, Appar turned to Jainism. He left home, joined a Jain monastery, where he was renamed Dharmasena (Tarumacenar). He studied Jainism and became the head of the Jain monastery in Tiruppatirippuliyur.[44][45] After a while, afflicted by a painful stomach illness, Dharmasena returned home.[46] His sister gave him Tirunuru (sacred ash) and the five syllable mantra "namaccivaya" (Namah Shivaya). Then together they went together to a Shiva temple in Atikai, where he spontaneously composed his first hymn of Tevaram. As he sang the second verse, he was miraculously cured of his stomach illness. Thereafter, he came to be known as Navukkaracar (from Skt: Vagisa, "king of speech") or more popularly just Appar. He had thus left Jainism, and become a devout Shaiva.[44]
Appar's hymn are intimately devotional to Shiva, but occasionally include verses where he repents the Jain period of his life.[44] In Tevaram hymn IV.39 and others, he criticizes the Jain monastic practice of not brushing teeth, the lack of body hygiene, their barbaric ascetic practices, the doctrine of pallurai (anekantavada) as self-contradictory relativism, the hypocrisy of running away from the world and work yet begging for food in that same world, and others.[47]
The Tamil hagiographies allege that Jain monks approached the Pallava king Mahendravarman to take revenge on Appar for his desertion.[48] Appar is summoned to the court and allegedly tortured. Appar remains in good spirit despite the persecution. Thus, Appar persuaded Mahendravarman of the folly in Jainism, and converted the king to Shaivism.[49][50]
Sundarar, also known as Nampi Arurar or Cuntaramurtti or Cuntarar,[53] is the third of the Tevaram trio. His Tevaram hymns provide more biographical specifics than the hymns of Sambandar and Appar.[53] Sundarar was born in Tirunavalur in a Shaiva Brahmin family to Sadaiya Nayanar and Isaignaniyar towards the end of the 7th century.[52] He was adopted by the Pallava feudatory family of Naracinka Munaiyaraiyar, an adoption that gave him a luxurious childhood and the last name "Arurar" after Shiva in Tiruvarur. As he grew into an adult in Tiruvarur, he was called "Sundarar" meaning "the handsome lord".[53]
His life and his hymns in the Tevaram are broadly grouped in four stages. First, his cancelled arranged marriage through the intervention of Shiva in the form of a mad petitioner and his conversion into a Shaiva devotee.[53] Second, his double marriage to temple dancers Paravai and Cankali with their stay together in Tiruvarur.[52] Third, his blindness and then return of his sight. Finally, his reflections on wealth and material goods.[53]
In the first part of his life, the arranged marriage of Sundarar is cancelled after a mad old man mysteriously appears and produces a palm leaf document. The document stated that Sundarar was bonded to serve him, his master. A court of elders then reviews the document and finds it authentic, demands Sundarar to serve the petitioner, who then mysteriously vanishes into Shiva shrine. Sundarar views this as a command to serve Shiva in the Tiruvarur temple.[54] Later he meets dancer Paravai, they marry, and together they serve the Shaiva pilgrims and take care of the temple duties. He goes to visit Tiruvorriyur, meets and is enamoured with Cankali. With the help of Shiva, this leads to Sundarar's second marriage, but only after his wedding vows include never leaving Cankali and Tiruvorriyur.[54] Sundarar misses his first wife Paravai, does not keep his word, and leaves for Tiruvarur. The broken vow causes him to go blind before he reaches Tiruvarur. His suffering thereafter are part of several Tevaram hymns.[55] As a blind man, he visits many Shiva shrines and sings there. Slowly in stages, he becomes closer to Shiva and recovers his sight.[56]
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