the holy Vedas of the Indo-Aryans, nor is it an exposition of their contents, rather than of the two great epics and the Puranas; and what is more surprising is that the four kinds of poetical compositions or prabandas of Nammalvar and the six varieties of Tirumangai-alvar's work are spoken of by the Vaishnava Acharyas as the counterparts of the four Sanskrit Vedas and their six Vedangas. This theory might appear false when it could be proved that Nammalvar lived two centuries after Kalivan. The Devara hymns which constitute a more voluminous collection of the non-Brahman Saivas are not so much valued by the Smartha Brahmans of the Tamil districts.[1] This disparity in the estimation of the two Tamil works of exactly similar nature was probably due to the anxiety of the early Acharyas to make the religion of Vishnu more popular among the Dravidians, most of whom were followers of Siva.
The collection of hymns and religious poems by Appar, Sambandar, Sundarar, Manikka Vachakar and other Saiva devotees and their compilation into eleven tirumurais or series are usually ascribed to Nain biyandar Nambi In the ninth book entitled the Tiruvisaippa we find a hymn composed by Gandaraditya
- ↑ Concerning this the Government Epigraphist writes as follow's:-"The Saiva creed...does not appear to have paid much attention to Sastric karma, but taking unsullied devotion to Siva as ils basis, it received into its fold all classes of people without any distinction of caste. This catholicity of the Saiva faith rendered it not very popular with the orthodox Brahmans".
