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Saint

Tirugnana Sambandar

Child-saint of Sirkazhi, singer of the Tevaram

7th century CE

Sambandar of Sirkazhi began to sing at three, after Mata Parvati fed him the milk of wisdom, and in sixteen years sang the hymns that fill the first three books of the Tirumurai. He brought the Pandya king of Madurai back to the worship of Shiva.

01The tank at Sirkazhi

His father Sivapada Hridayar left the three-year-old on the steps of the temple tank at Sirkazhi while he bathed. The child cried out for his parents. The Periya Puranam says Shiva and Parvati appeared, and the Mother gave him milk in a golden cup. When the father came out and asked who had fed him, the boy pointed to the sky and sang “Todudaiya seviyan”, the first hymn of the Tevaram. He travelled with his father, then with the player Tirunilakanta Yazhppanar, singing at shrine after shrine; Appar became his elder friend.

02Madurai and Nallur

The Pandya queen Mangayarkkarasiyar and the minister Kulachiraiyar, both Shaiva while the king followed the Jains, invited him to Madurai. The king, Ninrasir Nedumaran, fell ill with a burning fever; Sambandar sang a hymn on holy ash, applied it, and the fever left him. The king returned to Shiva. At sixteen Sambandar was married at Nallur Perumanam. The Periya Puranam says a light appeared at the wedding and he entered it with his bride and all the guests.

Pandya dynasty
Dynasty · c. 4th century BCE – late 16th century CEPandya dynastyThe Pandyas ruled from Madurai for close to two thousand years, longer than almost any house in the world. Megasthenes and Ashoka knew them; they broke the Kalabhras in the 6th century, lost Madurai to the Cholas in the 10th, and under Jatavarman Sundara Pandya in the 13th century became the strongest power in the south.Read →

Places

Sirkazhi and the Brahmapureeswarar TempleStanding
The Age of Great Kingdoms

Sirkazhi and the Brahmapureeswarar Temple

The town where the child Sambandar, aged three, was fed by Mata Parvati on the steps of the temple tank and sang his first hymn. Its temple has three levels, with Shiva worshipped in three forms.

Meenakshi Sundareswarar Temple, MaduraiRebuilt
Sultanates, Vijayanagara and the kingdoms that stood

Meenakshi Sundareswarar Temple, Madurai

The temple of the fish-eyed Devi who ruled Madurai as a Pandya princess and married Shiva. Plundered in 1311, it was raised again by the Nayaks into the city of fourteen gopurams that stands today.