Saints of Arunachala · The ancient saints
The Nalvar: the four who sang Arunachala
More than a thousand years before Ramana, four great Tamil saints sang the glory of the red hill ~ Sambandar, Appar, Sundarar and Manikkavachakar ~ each loving the same Shiva as son, servant, friend and beloved.
The short version
- Who
- The Nalvar ~ the four foremost Tamil Shaiva saints (Samaya Acharyas).
- When
- The Tamil bhakti age ~ roughly the 7th century, over 1,000 years before Ramana.
- The saying
- Sambandar loved Shiva as son; Appar as servant; Sundarar as friend; Manikkavachakar as beloved.
- The Arunachala tie
- A Paadal Petra Sthalam; Manikkavachakar composed his Tiruvempavai here.
Long before Ramana Maharshi came to Arunachala ~ more than a thousand years before ~ the hill was already being sung. The great Tamil Shaiva saints, walking the length of the Tamil country in the first flowering of the bhakti movement, came to Tiruvannamalai and poured out their love for the Lord of the red hill in verse that is still chanted today. To understand Arunachala at all is to know these four, the Nalvar, the four great saints of Tamil Shaivism, each of whom loved Shiva in his own distinct way.
A temple sung by the saints
The Arunachaleswarar temple is a Paadal Petra Sthalam ~ one of the 276 Shiva temples across the Tamil land that were sung in the sacred hymns of the Nayanmars, the sixty-three canonised saints of Tamil Shaivism. To be a Paadal Petra Sthalam is a mark of the highest sanctity: it means the temple was not merely built and worshipped, but loved into song by the saints, its glory fixed forever in the devotional literature of the Tamils. Arunachala holds this rank, and its hymns are among the tradition's treasures.
Of the sixty-three Nayanmars, four are held above the rest as the Nalvar (“the four”) ~ or the Samaya Acharyas, the great teachers of the faith. All four sang Arunachala. And a beautiful traditional saying captures how differently each of them loved the same Lord.
The four, and their four loves
There is a well-known statement in the tradition that these four great souls each stood in a different relationship to Shiva ~ and in those four relationships is a whole teaching about the ways a human heart can love the divine.
Thirugnana Sambandar
Shiva as his fatherA child prodigy who, tradition holds, was fed the milk of divine wisdom by the Goddess herself as an infant, Sambandar sang as a son to his father. His Tevaram hymns are radiant, tender, sure. He sang the glory of Arunachala among the many temples he visited across the Tamil land.
Appar (Thirunavukkarasar)
Shiva as his masterOnce a Jain, Appar returned to Shiva and gave the rest of his life to service ~ famously clearing weeds from temple paths with a small hoe. He loved Shiva as a servant loves his master, in utter humility. His Tevaram pathigams on Arunachala are among the temple's oldest surviving praises.
Sundarar (Sundaramurti)
Shiva as his friendSundarar's relationship was one of startling intimacy ~ he loved Shiva as a friend, even quarrelling with him, asking favours of him, treating the Lord with the frank familiarity of a companion. His hymns have a warmth and directness all their own, and he too sang Arunachala.
Manikkavachakar
Shiva as his belovedThe author of the Tiruvasagam, Manikkavachakar loved Shiva as a lover loves the beloved ~ with a longing, melting devotion that has made his verse perhaps the most beloved in all Tamil. It was at Arunachala that he composed his Tiruvempavai, twenty exquisite verses still sung in the Tamil month of Margazhi.
Manikkavachakar and the Tiruvempavai
Of the four, Manikkavachakar has the closest tie to this hill. His Tiruvempavai ~ twenty stanzas in praise of Shiva, framed as the songs of young women rising before dawn to bathe and worship ~ was composed here, and forms part of the Tiruvasagam, itself the eighth book of the Tirumurai, the great canon of Tamil Shaiva scripture. To this day, through the sacred month of Margazhi, the Tiruvempavai is chanted in the pre-dawn dark across Tamil Nadu, and with special resonance at Arunachala where it was born. He is also said to have sung his Tiruvammanai on the pradakshina path around the hill.
Honoured to this day
These four are not figures of a dead past here. During the great Karthigai Deepam festival, on the sixth day of the ten, the images of the Nalvar ~ the four Samaya Acharyas ~ together with representations of all sixty-three Nayanmars, are carried in procession around the great streets of the Arunachaleswarar temple. The saints who sang the hill a thousand years ago are still brought out to circle it, in the living memory of the tradition.
The Nalvar's hymns are preserved in the Tevaram (Appar, Sambandar, Sundarar) and the Tiruvasagam (Manikkavachakar), together forming part of the twelve-book Tirumurai; the lives of the sixty-three Nayanmars are told in Sekkizhar's Periya Puranam. The “four relationships” saying is a cherished part of Tamil Shaiva tradition. We retell all of this in our own words and do not reproduce the sacred hymns themselves, which remain best encountered in their own tongue and in scholarly translation.
Frequently asked questions
Who are the four Nayanmar saints who sang Arunachala?
They are the Nalvar ~ the four foremost Tamil Shaiva saints: Thirugnana Sambandar, Appar (Thirunavukkarasar), Sundarar (Sundaramurti) and Manikkavachakar. All four sang the glory of Arunachala. Appar, Sambandar and Sundarar's hymns are in the Tevaram; Manikkavachakar composed his Tiruvempavai at Arunachala.
What is a Paadal Petra Sthalam?
A Paadal Petra Sthalam is one of the 276 Shiva temples across the Tamil land that were sung in the sacred hymns of the Nayanmars, the 63 saints of Tamil Shaivism. The Arunachaleswarar temple holds this rank, marking it as one of the most sanctified Shiva temples, its glory fixed in the devotional literature.
How did each of the four saints relate to Shiva?
A cherished tradition holds that each loved Shiva differently: Sambandar as a son loves his father, Appar as a servant loves his master, Sundarar as a friend loves a friend, and Manikkavachakar as a lover loves the beloved ~ four human ways of loving the divine.
What is the Tiruvempavai and its link to Arunachala?
The Tiruvempavai is a set of 20 verses by Manikkavachakar, composed at Arunachala, framed as the songs of young women rising before dawn to worship Shiva. Part of the Tiruvasagam, it is still chanted in the pre-dawn of the Tamil month of Margazhi, with special resonance at Arunachala where it was born.
Last updated 3 October 2026. Drawn from Tamil Shaiva tradition and the sacred texts; retold in original words. Where a story is devotional tradition rather than documented history, we have said so.