A Biography Of The Tamil Poet- Sage Manickavasagar

 



The Tiruvatavur Atikal Puranam is a biography of the Tamil saint Manikkavacakar, the author of the collection of hymns in Tamil known as the Tiruvacakam. Along with the other three great poet-saints of Tamil Nadu, Appar, Tirurnanasambandhar and Sundarar, he played a major role in establishing the worship of Siva as the dominant religion at a time when the Jain and Buddhist religions were in the ascendant in South India. Little is known of his life other than what is written in the Madurai Sthala Puranam, otherwise known as the Tiru Vilaiyatal Puranam, which is an account of the holy exploits, 'sports', of Lord Siva in the Pandiyan Kingdom, written, or possibly translated from a Sanskrit original, in the 15th century by Paranjoti Munivar. The current work, the Tiruvatavur Atikal Puranam, is an expansion of sections 58-61 of that work, written in the 18th century by Katavul Mamunivar, of whom virtually nothing is known.