Sattainathar Temple, Sirkazhi – Association with Thirugnana
Sambandar
Tirugnana
Sampanthar (also rendered as Sambandar, Champantar, Sambandar, Jnanasambandar, and
Gnanasambandar) was a young Saiva poet-saint of
Tamil Nadu who lived around the 7th century CE. He is one of the most
prominent of the sixty-three Nayanars, Tamil Saiva bhakti saints who lived between the sixth and the tenth
centuries CE. Sambandar’s hymns to Shiva were later collected to form the first three
volumes of Thirumurai, the religious canon of Tamil Saiva
Siddhanta. He was a contemporary of
Appar, another Saiva saint.
Sampanthar was
born to Sivapaada Hrudayar and his wife Bhagavathiar who lived in Sirkazhi in Tamilnadu. They were a Saivite Brahmins who at that point of time
professed Rig Veda. The group of servitors wore tuft on top of their head with
a tilt towards right, as seen in all murals and statues of Sambandar and also
finds mention in the related hagiographies of that period and also of the later
periods like that of Arunagirinathar. According to legend, when Sampanthar was
three years old his parents took him to the Shiva temple where Shiva and his
consort Parvati appeared before the child.
The
goddess nursed him at her breast. His father saw drops of milk on the child's
mouth and asked who had fed him, whereupon the boy pointed to the sky and
responded with the song Todudaya Seviyan - the first verse of
the Tevaram. At his investiture with the sacred thread, at the age of
seven, he is said to have expounded the Vedas with great clarity. Sri Sankaracharya who lived in the subsequent century has also
referred to Sambandar in one hymn of Soundarya
Lahari, praising him as a gifted
Tamil child (Dravida Sishu) who was fed with milk of divine gnosis by goddess Uma.
