SAMBANDAR

(Tamil: TIRU JNANA SAMBANDAMURTI SWAMI)

IN the first half of the seventh century A.D. the worship of Siva Was at its lowest ebb, overpowered by the Jainism and Buddhism which prevailed throughout the Tamil country. But a few pious Saivites remained faithful. One of them, whose name means that his heart was laid at Siva's foot, and who lived in the town in the Tanjore District now known as Shiyali, prayed to the Siva worshipped in the Shiyali temple that he might be given a son who would dispel the godless dark and win men to Lord Siva again. Sambandar's birth was the answer to that prayer. At the tender age of three, so orthodox Saivites believe, this child was fed by Sivas spouse with milk from her divine breast, mingled with divine wisdom, whence he is called in his full name, "The man connected with wisdom divine," Tiru Jnana Sambandar.

He grew up to be a pilgrim poet, who visited most of the Saivite shrines with which South India abounds, in each place singing the praise of the Siva whom there he worshipped. The cause he loved suffered a severe blow when the great king of Madura, with many of his subjects, went over to the Jain religion. The queen-consort and her prime minister (see stanzas 20 and 21) remained faithful to Saivism, and sent for Sambandar.

[paragraph continues] The lonely saint faced a vast multitude of Jains in the royal presence, conquered them in argument, and reconverted the king. Eight thousand of the stubborn Jains, with Sambandar's consent, were impaled alive. Later on, after a similar adventure in another of the three great kingdoms of the Tamil country of his time, Sambandar converted to Saivism a crowd of Buddhist opponents.

This is about all that is known of a man who helped to sing Buddhism right out of Southern India, and who composed the collection of hymns which stands first among the canonical works of Saivites. Legends make him a wonder-worker, but we must draw our knowledge of the man from his poems themselves. He certainly was skilful in the handling of the many metres in which Tamil poetry is written, and it is not impossible that his productions were as effortless as the stories of him tell. That is their weakness, for there is not very much of heart religion in them. But they seem to have powerfully helped in that process of eliminating Jainism and Buddhism from India of which we know so little, though it was complete enough to be one of the marvels of history. Their author holds the foremost place among the four great 'Saivite Preceptors' (Sivacharyar), and some call him the incarnation of one of the sons of Siva.