Abstract
The history of this remarkable man is involved in considerable obscurity; but, although we can only discern the dim outlines of his figure amid the mists of South Indian tradition, it seems quite certain that he actually existed; that these legends, interesting in themselves, have a considerable foundation in fact; and that this sage was the first in the long and every way remarkable series of devotees of Civa who engaged in the work of recovering the south of India from the Buddhists and Jains. He is not however regarded in the Tamil lands as the greatest of the Caiva saints, that honour being reserved for Tiru Nana Sambandhar, some of whose legends are elsewhere given. Nor is it possible with even an approximation to certainty to fix his date.There is good reason however to suppose that, as he evidently flourished at the time when the influence of Buddhism in South India was decaying, if not dying out, he must have lived somewhere about the VIIIth or IXth century of our era. Some further confirmation of this supposition will resolve themselves into two: his own writings, which are very apearingly autobiographical; and the legendary poem called the Vathavurar Puranam. This latter again is an amplication of the LVIIIth to LXIst sections of the Madura Sthala-Puranam, or , as it is commonly called, Tiru Vilaiyadal Puranam. This latter professes to be a translation of a portion of the Sanskrit "Skandam," an cannot itself be ancient, dating from about A.D. 1750 probably. The 62nd and 63rd sections give a summary of the sage's Madura experiences. Like other collections of the legends of Hindu temples the Tiru Vilayadal is full of the most extraordinary stories, from which it is impossible to sift out many grains of historical truth. And the Vathavurar Puranam is professedly a poetical romance. We must therefore rely chiefly upon the poems for a picture of the devotee, and even here a difficulty meets us at the outset. A multitude of spurious writings are in India (as indeed elsewhere) attributed to nearly every person of historic repute; and interpolations too are always to be suspected. The rivalry between opposing sects has greatly tended to this result. Each Guru must be represented as having done greater works than those of the Gurus of rival systems; and also his writings must be brought up to date, and must lend support to the most recent development of the tenets of the sect.