Page:Tamil studies.djvu/333

306 was also the builder of the Siva temple called Gunabharesvaram. His date is said to be the early part of the seventh century A. D. Being a stanch Vishnuvite, our Alvar it appears was also persecuted by a Pallava king, very likely the above Mahendra Varma I or Narasimha Varma II (A. D. 675) both of whom were devout followers of Siva and builders of several temples to that deity. Taking all these circumstances into our careful consideration we shall not be unreasonable if we assign the middle of the seventh century A. D. to our Alwar's active work. He should, therefore, have been a contemporary of the Saiva saints Tirunavukkarasu Nayanar and Sambandamurti Nayanar.

It is said in the Guruparamparai that he had enter ed into all the religions of his times before he became a Vishnuvite, and that when he was a Saivite he assumed the name of Sivavakkiyar. There is such a close resemblance in the metre and the harmonic flow of the poems of Sivavakkiyar and the Tiruchchanda Viruttam of our Alvar, as to make one believe that both the poems were composed by one and the same author. Further, some of the stanzas occurring in both are almost identical, and had the present Copyright Act been in force then, either of them should have been prosecuted under it.