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Rh any degree of certainty. But from their general tenor it might be inferred that he should have lived at a period when the Jains, Buddhists and Saivas were fighting with one another for religious supremacy. This age, so far as it could be ascertained was the seventh century A. D., when the great champions of the Saiva faith, Tirunavukkarasu and Sambandar, were busily engaged in the work of religious disputations. Moreover, there is a tradition, which as we have pointed above, connects him with the first three Alvärs. It is said that during his pilgrimage to Kumbakonam he stayed for some time at Chidambaram or Perumpuliyur. As he has not celebrated the Vishnu god of that famous stronghold of Sivaism, it is almost certain that in his days the shrine of Govinda Raja did not come into existence. Tirumangai Alvar informs us that this god was set up and worshipped by a Pallava king who may have, in all probability, been Nandivarına I or Peramesvara Varma II, A. D. 690. Tiruinalisai Alvar should, therefore, have lived at least half a century before Tirumangai Alvar, that is in the latter half of the seventh century. Again in the 93rd stanza of his antadi our Alvâr addresses Vishnu thus,

...... 35606 கொடுத்தளித்த கோனே குணப்பானே. The expression 'குணப்பான்' reminds us of the Pallava king Mahendra Varma I whose birudu or title was ‘Gunabhara', and whose inscriptions are still to be seen on the rock at Trichinopoly. He

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