Sambandar: Tirugnana sambandar

Sambandar: Tirugnana sambandar: Tirugnana Campantar (திருஞானசம்பந்தர் - also rendered as Sambandar, Champantar, Sambandar, Jnanasambandar,

Gnanasambandar) was a young Saiva saint.

Tirugnana Campantar (திருஞானசம்பந்தர் - also rendered as Sambandar, Champantar, Sambandar, Jnanasambandar, Gnanasambandar) was a young Saiva poet-saint of Tamil Nadu who lived around the 7th century CE.[1]He is one of the most prominent of the sixty-three Nayanars, Tamil Saiva bhakti saints who lived between the sixth and the tenth centuries CE. Campantar's hymns to Shiva were later collected to form the first three volumes of the Tirumurai, the religious canon of Tamil Saiva Siddhanta. He was a contemporary of Appar, another Saiva saint.[2]Information about Campantar comes mainly from the Periya Puranam, the eleventh-century Tamil book on the Nayanars that forms the last volume of the Tirumurai, along with the earlier Tiruttondartokai, poetry by Cuntarar and Nambiyandar Nambi's Tiru Tondar Tiruvandadi. A Sanskrit hagiography called Brahmapureesa Charitam is now lost to us . The first volumes of the Tirumurai contain three hundred and eighty-four poems of Campantar, all that survive out of a reputed more than 10,000 hymns.[3]Campantar was born to Sivapada Hrudiyar and his wife Bhagavathiar who lived in Sirkazhi in Tamil Nadu. They were Saivite brahmins. The group of servitors wore a tuft on top of their head as can be seen in all ancient murals of tirugnanasambandar (like for example in temples of tiru ambar, kudavayil, tirumakaalam and vilamar etc.), all statues and even paintings. The ancient literature has referred to this visual identification as "koor kondrai vaar chadai"( a knot that is on top of head and tilted). The ancient hagiographies have also noted this and so do the writings of subsequent periods. The knot is similar to the ones of "the three thousand ones of chidambaram", that sambandar praises in his hymn at chidambaram. Both sambandar and sundarar have themselves referred to this in thier respective hymns. There is evidence to point that at that point of time the group worked on Rig veda. Some more information regarding sambandar may be obtained by summarizing some small epigraphs and documents as below.There is an interesting legend in connection with the velaikkarar or workingclass mercenary soldiers of cholas. They occur in many inscriptions as infantry men who are also to do the camp building,roadlaying and other menial works. They are divided into three corps namely left hand, right hand, and centre. Regarding the left hand division of the mercenary troop, the following is quoted in Madras epigraphical report of 1913.C.E. It says: That during a certain epochal age, sage kashyapa along with 400 young sage disciples started a sacrifice to increase the power of gods who were involved in a terrible war with demons. The demons who came to know of this started disturbing the proceedings. Inorder to tackle the demons, the sages made appear from the sacrificial altar a corp of workingclass mercenaries.Since they were called upon to do menial tasks the sages named them “velaikkaras” or workers. The mercenaries successfully defended the sacrifice from the demonic assault. Following this the sage kashyapa left to his heavenly abode and the remaining young sages who part took in the sacrifice requested emperor arindama to allow them to settle for a few years in places in and around the venue of sacrifice in order to complete some religious rituals. The emperor agreed to do so and settled them in places of tiruvellarai,anbil,manakkal, papakurichi etc(all in and around trichy). In the Premapuri - Sthalamahatmya (on the greatness of Anbil), it is mentioned that eighteen villages with four hundred families, on either banks of the Cauvery, once flourished. Alongside these brahmana sages settled the mercenary troop called left hand troop. They were called left hand because :” after the completion of sacrifices they were seated along side the sages in their cars and as they disembarked, the sages were helped out of the cars by the left hand of the workers who had been caused to come out of sacrificial fire by the virtuous sages.” Not with standing this, they were to observe certain rules to be considered as continuing belonging to the group of left hand mercenaries. This was whenever a conference meeting is called only those workers who carried along with them the left hand mercenary insignia of bugle, horn, heron and swan feather, all of which come as a recognition for having completed the service of military with efficiency, would continue to remain in the group and carry the tag of left hand mercenaries further. Those who did not fetch the same shall be dismembered and shall no longer carry the name left hand troop or follow customs of the same. These mercenaries were used by cholas and pallavas as well. As we find some of them being referred to as “ pallavasya dhwajaniyah”(those who come under the flag of pallavas). The left hand troop that had 98 divisions as perundanam, sirundanam, pillaigaldanam,illankai,malayalar and vadugar, have been incorrectly interpreted by the colonial epigraphists in the context of current geographies,but these terms oint to velaikkaras only. The velaikkaras were also supposed to as a type of obligation be incharge of security of the area surrounding srirangam for a period of three years on rotation which was a rule discussed in various ancient business law books like that of viswarupa, atri, vyasa, narada and others. The accostment of armed velaikkaras in srirangam and their guarding the premises which is evidenced in many inscriptions is also exactly in line with the sacrifice of treta yugam where they had their origin. Eventhough we have not still traced the documents breaking up the services rendered by these great servitors some information available from documents like koyilolugu on srirangam's history say that many were of atreya and bharadwaja recensions.The velaikkaras also feature prominently as men incharge of security in several vaishnava endowments at burma, Indonesia, Malaysia , Maldives and srilanka. There however exists a slight inconsistency with the number of participant sages where in some sthala mahatmya texts have it as 400, where as some ther puranas quote it to be 4000. This is because in the literature of places like watrap in pandyan country we find the mention to certain group of Brahmin servitors “who were a part of nalayiravar or four thousand ones.”. It was noted above that old Tamil inscriptions that the four hundred villages practiced ancient vedic rituals and among the 3000 recensions of samaveda the Talavakara-Saman or jaimineeya supposed to be most ancient recension of the same was in use. Talavakara is only the older or alternative name for the Jaiminiya. On Jaiminiya manuscripts the name Talavakara is found. Sankara refers to the Kenopanisad under that name. What is most important is that the Talavakara Sakha of the Sama Veda is still current in some parts of Tamilnad. They have it thus at Kidamangalam, llayattangudi, Sesamulail, Sendalai, Nangur, etc(Sirkali the birth place of sambandar comes in nangur). in Tanjore district. The families associated with the Tirumala-yaagam(probably the same sacrifice that took place in the puranic age and that is mentioned above) which students of Saivite history and the lives of Sundaramurti and Somayaji Mara Nayanars know, are Talavakaras; some of the Talavakaras of this place had embraced Vaisnavism. In Trichi district, Talavakaras are found in Papakurichi, Uttamasili and Anbil; in Tirunelveli Dt., at Alvar Tirunagari, Tentirupperai ( Vaisnavas) and Watrap(pandinattu nalayiravar); and at Karamanai and Tiruvattar near Trivandrum, and at Alagiyapandiyapuram, Nagarkoyil and Sucindram also. Likewise in the western chera country we have such places in tiruchenkunroor near quilon, vithuvakkode(near cochin), tiruvanantapuram, tiruppuliyur and vanchi near ernakulam. The sages are also known to have practiced among the Vedas the elaborate kausheetiki version of rigveda called baashkalam. Some practitioners also preferred aswalayana rig veda.The following inscription of sundarachola(950.C.E-957.C.E) is interesting from that perspective:It states that :“an endowment of 20 Karunkasu made to the temple by Baradayan( Bharadwaja, belonging to the lineage of sage Bharadwaja, the father of Drona , the preceptor of pandavas) Senada-Nakkapiranbatta-Sarvakratuyajiyar of Kurramangalam , with the provison that the annual interest of 3 kasu accruing there form was to be given as prize among the competitors, excluding those who were successful in previous years, to the best reciter of prescribed portions of Jaiminiya-Samaveda before the god(Siva) on the night of Tiruvadirai in Margali month(month of December).”.The inscription is from On the south wall of the central shrine,of Matsyapurisvara temple. Koyil-Tevarayanpettai (near Pandaravadai), Papanasam taluk, Tanjore District. On the south wall of the central shrine.Further the anbil grant of the same ruler refer to certain aniruddha brahmarayan “a devotee at the feet of Lord Ranganathan(Lord Vishnu) at srirangam” , a follower of jaimineeya samaveda and a minister to sundara chola , who belonged to the place anbil as a patron and donee to some temples in the a forementioned 18 villages.Sankaracharya who lived in the subsequent century has referred to him in one hymn of his Saundarya Lahari, praising him as a gifted Tamil child ("dravida sisu") who was fed with milk of divine gnosis by the goddess Uma. According to legend, when Campantar was three years old his parents took him to the Shiva temple where Shiva and his consort Parvati appeared before the child. His father saw drops of milk on the child's mouth and asked who had fed him, whereupon the boy pointed to the sky and responded with the song Todudaya Seviyan, the first verse of the Tevaram. At his investiture with the sacred thread, at the age of seven, he is said to have expounded the Vedas with great clarity. Campantar attained liberation (mukti) in "Visaka Nakshtara" in the Tamil month of "Visakam" at the age of sixteen soon after his marriage.He went to Madurai during the reign of the Pandyan Dynasty King, Koon Pandiyan (கூன் பாண்டியன்). In the first half of the seventh century, the non-vedic faiths like Buddhism and jainism had started spreading. The Pandyan king had converted to Jainism,. This was an event that had occured neither due to arrogance nor ignorance on his part but only due to confusion and bad times(KOL)Sekkizhar in more than 20 long verses scorned the conspiracy of the Jains. It is said that his queen Mangayarkarasi (மங்கையர்கரசி) invited Sambandhar.[4] As a wandering minstrel Campantar sang hymns opposing Jain and Buddhist thought and is credited with the conversion of the Pandya king from Jainism.[1] It is said to have been by the advice of Campantar that the king ordered a massacre of 8000 Jainas an act which sambandar both praised and approved.[5