Alvar

Collective name for twelve poet-saints
devoted to the god Vishnu who lived
in southern India between the seventh
and tenth centuries. In conjunction
with the Nayanars, who were devoted
to the god Shiva, the Alvars spearheaded the revitalization of Hindu
religion vis-à-vis the Buddhists and
the Jains. Both the Alvars and the
Nayanars stressed passionate devotion (bhakti) to a personal god and
conveyed this devotion through
hymns sung in the Tamil language.
The earliest Alvars were a group of
three seventh-century contemporaries: Poygai, Pey, and Bhutam,
whose propitious meeting on a rainy
night is described as sparking the
devotional flame. The next group:
Tiruppan, Tirumalisai, Tondaradippodi,
Kulashekhara, Periyalvar, Andal, and
Tirumangai, are believed to have lived
in the ninth century. They were followed
by Nammalvar and his disciple
Mathurakavi, who can be reasonably
placed in the beginning of the tenth
century, as can Nathamuni, who collected all of the Alvars’ hymns in the
Nalayira Prabandham. Although the
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Alvar
Alvars described themselves only as
human devotees (bhakta), by the tenth
century they were revered by the
Shrivaishnava religious community as
anshavatars, or incarnations of Vishnu’s
attributes or companions. Their collected
hymns were (and are) popularly known as
the Tamil Veda and became a vital part of
later Vaishnava piety in southern India.
This is particularly true for the
Shrivaishnava tradition, in which one of
the major figures was Nathamuni himself.