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336 the year 1022. Admitting that our sage died about 1025 A. D., he should have been born about 915 A. D., and this gives him an age of 110 years. This is sufficiently a long age, and there is every reason to believe that he, being a Yogi, could have lived for such a long period.

(c) According to the inscriptions of Bitti Deva or Vishnuvardhana of Mysure, the great Vaishnava reformer Sri Ramanujacharya was living in 1134 A. D. Even if we allow him an unusually long age of 115 years, it is certain that he was about thirty years old in A. D. 1049, which must be assumed as the year of Alavandar's death; that is, he may have survived his grand-father Nathamuni some 24 or 25 years. Granting that Alavandar lived to an advanced age of eighty, he should have been born about A.D. 969 when Nathamuni was about 54 or 55; and it is not improbable for a man of this age to beget a grandson. We are therefore inclined to believe that Nathamuni was a direct disciple of Nammalvar and studied Tiruvoymoli and Yoga philosophy when he was about 20 or 25 years of age under our most revered Saint. In other words Nammalvar must have been alive in A.D. 935. Moreover, it is said that about the writings of Nammalvar, Sri Nathamuni enquired one Parankusadasa, a disciple of Madhurakavi Alvar (afterwards his fellow student) who is believed to have been born in the Dvapura Yuga!

Further he should have also been the last of the Alvars, as one of our early Acharyas distinctly says