01The sleepless tamarind
Kariyar and Udaiyanangai brought their silent child to the temple of Adinatha here, and the boy crawled into the hollow of a tamarind and stayed there, eyes closed, for sixteen years. The Sri Vaishnava tradition calls the tree Urangapuli, the tamarind that never sleeps, and says it is Adishesha himself. When Madhurakavi came looking for the light he had seen in the south, he asked the boy a riddle and got an answer, and became his first disciple. Sitting under that tree Nammalvar sang the Tiruvaymoli, which Sri Vaishnavas call the Tamil Veda.
02Nava Tirupati and the Garuda Sevai
The town is one of the Nava Tirupati, nine Vishnu temples strung along the lower Tamraparni that pilgrims visit in a single circuit. Nammalvar has his own shrine within the walls. In the Tamil month of Vaikasi, on the day of his birth star Vishakha, the utsava murtis of the Nava Tirupati are brought to Alwarthirunagari and carried out on Garuda vahanas together, with Nammalvar facing them in a palanquin, while his verses on each temple are sung. It was the recovery of his hymns, through Nathamuni, that gave the Sri Vaishnava tradition its Nalayira Divya Prabandham.
The life of this place
- Alvar periodNammalvar is born at Tirukurugur and sings the Tiruvaymoli under the temple tamarind.
- 10th centuryNathamuni comes here and, by tradition, recovers the four thousand verses of the Alvars.
Alwarthirunagari is about 35 km from Tirunelveli on the Tiruchendur road. Come for the Garuda Sevai in Vaikasi (May–June).
