Between the seventh
and ninth centuries, a group of sixty-three Shaiva poet-saints resided in
southern India.
The Nayanars, along with their Vaishnava counterparts the
Alvars, were instrumental in the renewal of Hindu religion in relation to
Buddhists and Jains.
Both the Nayanars and the Alvars placed a strong emphasis on
personal devotion (bhakti) to a personal god—Shiva for the Nayanars and Vishnu
for the Alvars—and expressed this love via hymns sung in Tamil.
The Nayanars were more openly antagonistic to the Jains than
the Jains.
According to mythology, the Nayanar Sambandar was
responsible for the imprisonment of 8,000 Jain monks in Madurai.
Appar, Sambandar, and Sundaramurtti, the three most
significant Nayanars, composed the Devaram, the most holy of Tamil Shaivite
writings.
The Periya Puranam by Cekkilar is a later source that
contains hagiographic narratives for all of the Nayanars.
