The next two stanzas, taken from two separate hymns associated with the great cities of Trichinopoly and Madura, both sacred places of Saivism, are set side by side in order to bring out a point which even the most sympathetic student may not ignore. Siva is commonly spoken of as all good, as in stanza 8, and yet not infrequently He includes, as in stanza 9, both good and its opposite. The pantheistic tendency even in these hymns causes God to be sometimes depicted as so all-embracing as to include evil as well as good.

8. All goodness hath He and no shadow of ill.
Grey-white is His bull, fair Uma shares His form.
His wealth is past searching. Chirapalli's hill
Is His, whom to praise keeps my heart ever warm.

9. Thou art right and Thou art wrong,
Lord of holy Alavay;
Kinsman, I to Thee belong;
Never fades Thy light away.
Thou the sense of books divine,
Thou my wealth, my bliss art Thou,
Thou my all, and in Thy shrine
With what praises can I bow?

No one can know Siva unless He chooses to reveal Himself. This thought constantly recurs with great emphasis. Its favourite expression is in the first legend of the four told in our introduction. Hymn singers are fond of contrasting with the vain search of Brahma and Vishnu the revelation of Himself which Siva has graciously granted to them. Compare stanzas 25 and 48.

10. Thou Light whom Brahma, being's fount, and Vishnu could not see,
No righteousness have I, I only speak in praise of Thee.
Come, Valivalam's Lord, let no dark fruit of deeds, I pray,
Torment Thy slave who with his song extols Thee day by day.

Astrology plays a large part in popular Hinduism, and the influence of baleful or auspicious stars must be reckoned with in daily life. Most baleful of all is the influence of the eclipse, which is caused by two dragons Rahu and Ketu which swallow the moon or the sun. This stanza enumerates the nine planets, Sun, Moon, Mars, Mercury; Jupiter, Venus, Saturn, Rahu and Ketu, and says that to the singer, who has Siva in his heart, all of them, even the dragons of eclipse, are auspicious. It is a powerful and characteristically Hindu way of saying that all things work together for good to those who love God.

The reference to the bamboo constantly recurs in descriptions of ladies' beauty. Everyone who has seen a feathery clump of bamboo trees waving in the breeze will understand it as a symbol of delicate grace.

The vina is the most delicate and beautiful instrument played in South India.