Person · Alvar poet-saint

Nammālvār

Also known as Nammalvar, Satakopan, Maran, Sathakopa

Date

c. 9th century

Function

Religious institution & practice

Tradition

Nālāyira Divya Prabandham; Tiruvāymoḻi

Confidence

Established / referenced

Worth knowing

Hagiography has him silent and motionless under a tamarind tree for sixteen years, speaking only when Madhurakavi Ālvār asked him the right question. The tamarind still stands at Āḻvārtirunagari and is said never to have shed a leaf.

Connections (3)

• Devotional corpus onShrīrangam

  Nammālvār's Tiruvāymoḻi gives Srirangam more verses than any other shrine, and Śrīvaishnava practice recites the whole Prabandham there over ten days each Mārgaḻi in the Adhyayanotsavam. The temple is where a Tamil poetic canon is treated as liturgy on equal footing with Sanskrit scripture. The Adhyayanotsavam includes a day on which the temple's own priests act out Nammālvār's ascent to liberation, with the poet's image carried into the sanctum and not brought out.

• Devotional corpus onTirupati

  Thiruvēnkatam is among the shrines Nammālvār sings most, and the Ālvār canon is what makes Tirupati a Divya Desam rather than merely a rich temple. He calls the hill itself the object of devotion, not only the image on it, which is why the seven hills are walked as well as climbed.

• Canonised by textŚrīvaishnavism

  Śrīvaishnavism's distinctive claim is that Nammālvār's Tamil stands beside the Sanskrit Veda rather than below it — Ubhaya Vedānta, the double canon. Nāthamuni is said to have recovered the lost hymns by meditation at Āḻvārtirunagari; whatever happened, a vernacular poetry entered temple liturgy and stayed there. The claim is not merely honorific: the Tamil verses are recited in the sanctum, in the daily liturgy, by the same priests who recite the Sanskrit, which is what the argument was about.

Sources

Wikipedia, “Nammalvar”. The subject’s own writings where they survive, and the standard biographical literature.

• Wikipedia — Nammalvar