हिंदीOn this day
Photo: Richard Mortel from Riyadh, Saudi Arabia · CC BY 2.0
Saint

Appar (Tirunavukkarasar)

Nayanar, singer of the Tevaram

7th century CE

Appar, one of the three singers of the Tevaram, came back to Shiva from years as a Jain monk and, by the Periya Puranam, won over the Pallava king Mahendravarman I. His hymns fill the fourth, fifth and sixth books of the Tirumurai.

“We are subjects of none; we do not fear Yama.”Tevaram of Appar, Sixth Tirumurai

01Dharmasena comes home

Born Marulneekkiyar at Tiruvamur, he lost his parents young and was cared for by his elder sister Tilakavathiyar, a Shiva devotee. He joined the Jains at Pataliputra (Tiruppadirippuliyur) and rose to lead them as Dharmasena. Then a pain in the belly struck him that no remedy could touch. He went to his sister at Tiruvadigai; she gave him holy ash and took him to the Virattanam temple, where he sang his first hymn and the pain left him. Shiva named him Tirunavukkarasar, King of Speech; Sambandar called him Appar, father.

02The lime kiln and the stone

The Periya Puranam tells that the king, then a Jain, had him shut in a burning lime kiln, set an elephant on him, and had him tied to a stone and thrown into the sea; the stone floated ashore at Tiruppadirippuliyur. The king, Mahendravarman I, turned Shaiva and built a temple. Appar walked from shrine to shrine, singing and clearing grass from the temple courtyards with a small hoe, which he is shown holding. He lived past eighty and attained Shiva’s feet at Tirupugalur.

Pallava dynasty
Dynasty · c. 275–897 CEPallava dynastyThe Pallavas of Kanchi carried temple building from timber and brick into rock and then into dressed stone. Mahendravarman I cut the first rock temples of the Tamil country, Narasimhavarman I took Vatapi in 642 and filled Mamallapuram with sculpture, and Rajasimha built the Shore Temple and the Kailasanatha at Kanchi.Read →

“We are subjects of none; we do not fear Yama.”

Tevaram of Appar, Sixth Tirumurai

Places

Tiruvadigai VeerattanamStanding
The Age of Great Kingdoms

Tiruvadigai Veerattanam

One of the eight Veerattanams where Shiva overcame evil, here as the destroyer of the three cities of the asuras. At this temple Appar, sick and returned from the Jain fold, sang his first hymn and was healed.

On the timeline

  • c. 7th century CE

    Appar and Sambandar sing the TevaramFaith

    The Nayanars walked from temple to temple singing hymns to Shiva. The Periya Puranam says Appar turned King Mahendravarman from the Jain path back to Shiva.