yy EEV. G. U. POPE, D.D., ON 



saints, that honour being reserved for liru* i^Cma Sam- 

 bandhar, some of whose legends are elsewhere given. Nor is 

 it possible with even an approximation to certainty to fix his 

 date. There is good reason however to suppose that, as he 

 evidently, flourished at the time when the influence of Buddh- 

 ism in South India was decaying, if not dying out, he must 

 have lived somewhere about the Vlllth or IXth century of 

 our era. Some further confirmation of this supposition will 

 be forthcoming. The authorities for his history really 

 resolve themselves into two : his own writings, which are 

 very sparingly autobiographical ; and the legendary poem 

 called the Vathavurarf Puranam. This latter again is an 

 amplification of the LVIIIth to LXlst sections of the 

 Madura StJiala-Purdnam, or, as it is commonly called, Tiru 

 VilaiyudalX Puranam. This latter professes to be a trans- 

 lation ot a portion of the Sanskrit " Skandam," and cannot 

 itself be ancient, dating from about A.D. 1750 probably. 

 The 62nd and ()3rd sections give a summary of the sage's 

 Madura experiences. Like otlier collections of the legends 

 of Hindu temples the J'iru VilaiyCidal is full of the most 

 extraordinary stories, from Avhich it is impossible to sift out 

 many grains of historical truth. And the Vathavurar 

 Furdnam is professedly a poetical romance. We must 

 therefore rely chiefly upon the poems for a picture of the 

 devotee, and even here a difficulty meets us at the outset. 

 A multitude of spurious writings are in India (as indeed else- 

 where) attributed to nearly every person of historic repute ; 

 and interpolations too are always to be suspected. The 

 rivalry between opposing sects has greatly tended to this 

 result. Each Guru must be represented as having done 

 greater works than those of the Gurus of rival systems ; and 

 also his writings must be brought up to date, and must lend 

 support to the most recent development of the tenets of the 

 sect. 



* Tint is the Tamil equivalent of the Sanskrit p% " blessed," "sacred," 

 and when prefixed to the name of persons corresponds to Saint. The 

 Tamil form of S. Jnana is nana. 



t Vdtham = disputation [S. Y(7da]. The town where the saint was 

 born was called " disjiutatiou-town." The country was full of polemics 

 in tliose days. 



I See Note I. "Sacred-sports" of the god, of which sixty-four are 

 given. This work has been printed in Tamil. A summary is given in 

 Taylor's Oriental Historical Manuscripts, I, 55-192. The Tamil Verse 

 translation is by Parailjoti-mamunivar. See also Nelson's Madura 

 Manual. 



