Periyalvar, Andal, Nammalvar and Manikka Vachakar in thought, language, style and form is so close as to suggest their being contemporaries more or less. The above Vaishnava saints lived between A. D. 850 and 925.
(10) In the Tiru-tonda-togai (திருத்தொண்டத்தொகை) of Sundarar, the last of the sixty-three Saiva saints, who lived about the first quarter of the ninth century no mention is made of Manikka Vachakar. Yet like the Vaishnava acharyas who twisted and misconstrued texts to fix the beginning of the Kaliyug as the age of Nammalvar—the last of their saints—some of the more recent pandits and scholars have attempted to put the date of our Saiva saint long anterior to that of Appar and Trignana Sambardar, interpreting the expression பொய்யடிமை யில்லாத புலவர் in the திருத்தொண்டத்தொகை as a reference to the saint, and supporting it by two vague allusions found in the following lines from Appar's Tevaram :—
(1) நரியைக் குதிரை செய்வானும்.
(2) குடமுழநந்தீசனை வாசகனாக்கொண்டார்.
Here the first quotation proves nothing, as the miraculous transformation of Jackals into 'horses' though traditionally connected with Manikka Vachakar, is an old 'floating myth', like many others of that kind. It was one of the many miracles performed by Siva, and to which our saint himself refers thus,
நரியைக்குதிரையாக்கியநன்மையும்.
There is a reference to this miracle in the Kalladam also. Had Kalladanar, its author, lived posterior to Manikka Vachakar, which seems to me to be more probable, the Jackal miracle should be taken as one of the many
