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338 we consider the spirit and the religious movements of this period of sectarian reforms (A.D. 950-1150), and the halo of divine glory which had shone even in their own life time. We are told in the biographies of the Vaishnava Acharyas that copper images of Sri Ramanuja were set up, in obedience to his orders, immediately after the termination of his earthly existence, and that Manavalamamuni gave away his copper water pot for the making of his image just on the eve of his departure to the other world. And it has been said above that the custom of setting up images for these canonized saints came into vogue only after 1000 A.D.

The above arguments must irresistably lead any unbiassed reader to conclude that our Nammalvar should have flourished in the first half of the tenth century A.D. which is full two hundred years posterior to Tirumangai Alvar. It is, therefore, clear that the traditional stories relating to these two Saints in which Mr. S. Krishnaswamy Aiyangar places so much faith and the fabulous difference of 3500 years between Nammalvar and his direct disciple Nathamuni, on which the archavatar theory of the Vaishnava Acharayas rests, must be rejected as pure concoctions of Manavalamamuni and his predecessors, devised in support of their absurdly cherished beliefs.

To summarise the results of our discussions regarding the Vaishnava Saints: (1) the reformation of the Vaishnava sect began in the Pallava country