In the seventh century A.D. there was a spiritual genius-cum-saint-poet by name Sambandar who lived only for sixteen years but is said to have composed 10,000 devotional hymns to Lord Shiva in Tamil.He had the genius of singing hymns to the Lord for a miracle to happen and lo, it happened every time he asked for it. Shiva (Sanskrit: शिव; Hindi: शिव (when used to distinguish lordly status), and written Śiva in the official IAST transliteration, pronounced as is a form of Ishvara or God in the later Vedic scriptures of Hinduism. ... Tamil (தமிழ் ) is a classical language and one of the major languages of the Dravidian language family. ...

Milk of Divinity tasted by Three-year old

Thirugnana Sambanthar depicted at Smithsonian Institute’s collections

The earliest hymn Sambandar sang was when he was a boy of hardly three years old. It seems he was left alone on the steps of the temple tank at Piramapuram (modern Sirkali, in Tamil Nadu, India). His father Sivapatavirutayar left him there and headed for a bath in the tank. When the father was having the series of ritual dips in the water, the child missed him, cried ‘Amma, Appa’ (Tamil for ‘Mother’ and ‘Father’) and asked for milk. Lord Shiva appeared before him along with his consort Uma, the Mother Goddess. The latter breast-fed him! The boy tasted the milk, as it were, of true Knowledge and Divine Wisdom. When the father saw him and asked him for the reason, the boy reeled off in chaste Tamil poetry what became one of the most famous of all Tamil hymns. The stanza contains no allusion to the story however, but that the boy had an unusual vision of the Lord, is obvious from the description he gives of Him in his maiden hymn-recital. From that moment he had become the inspired saint St. Tiru-gnana-sambandar (“The one connected with Divine Enlightenment). The Smithsonian castle, as seen through the garden gate. ... UMA or Uma is a three-letter abbreviation with multiple meanings, as described below: Uma (goddess), a Hindu goddess. ...

The first song

His ears are beringed, He rideth the Bull;

His head is adorned with the Crescent Moon’s ray;

White is He with ash from the burning ground swept;

And He is the thief who my heart steals away

Great Brahma enthroned on the lotus full bloom;

Erstwhile bowed him down and His Glory extolled;

And singing received he the Grace of our Lord

Who dwelleth in famed Brahmapuram old.

Life full of miracles and hymns

As a wandering minstrel he sang marvellous poems after poems and triumphantly established the Shaiva school of Hinduism in opposition to religions like Jainism and Buddhism. At the temple of Tirukkoloka he sang praises of the Lord keeping beat with his hands. God showered on him a pair of golden bells for beating time. He always carried it with him. At Maranpadi the Lord created a pearl palanquin, a pearl umbrella and other paraphernalia bedecked with pearls. The Lord instructed the priests in a dream and appeared to Sambandar also in a dream – so that the matter of his constantly using these paraphernalia wherever he went, was assured and accepted by the public. But whenever he sighted a temple tower he used to alight from his palanquin and walk on foot, in order to express the fact that, before God, he should not parade these emblems of luxury. Jaina redirects here. ...

Miracle after miracle

Once on his way to the temple of Tiruvannamalai he sighted the temple tower even in distant Tikrukkoilur. So he walked the distance. On the way, the Lord’s angels appeared before him as robbers and carried away all his ornaments and the golden jimbals, etc. Finally these were returned to him by God Himself after he and his companions had the darshan (holy physical viewing ) of the Deity. The Lord performed miracle after miracle like this for this most-favoured devotee of his. Tiruvannamalai Tiruvannamalai (திருவண்ணாமலை in Tamil) is a town in the state of Tamil Nadu in India situated 185 km from Chennai/Madras. ...

Senior Contemporary, Appar

Tirunavukkarasu Nayanar, familiarly known as Appar, was Sambandar’s senior contemporary. Among the Shaiva Nayanars (Divine infatuated worshippers of Shiva) four are said to be the leaders. Appar and Sambandar are two of them. The divine songs that emanated from these four and many other Nayanmars are called the Shaiva devotional hymns numbering around 16,000.They have been arranged into eleven books called Shaiva Tirumurai. The first seven books of Tirumurai are collectively called Tevaram. The first of these contains all the extant hymns of Sambandar, numbering 384 and it is called Sambandar Tevaram. Together with Appar he visited most of the Shaivite shrines of the Tamil land. In each place he sang, extempore, the praise of Lord Shiva in the form in which He was worshipped in that temple. The Nayanars were the sincere and ardent devotees of Lord Siva. ... The Pallava period in the history of Tamil land is a period of religious revival of Hinduism by the Saiva Nayanmars who by their bhakti-cult captured the minds of people. ...

Final Beatitude

At the age of sixteen, that is, after his marriage ceremonies were over, the young saint entered the temple and prayed to Lord Shiva that the time had come for him to reach his holy feet. His fervent prayer was granted and the saint with all the other fortunates entered into the jyoti (the divine light) and disappeared. St. Sambandar is generally thought to have lived from 644 to 660 A.D..