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



thence thou shalt go from shrine to shrine, till in ^ithambaram 

 thou shalt discomfit the Buddhists, and then obtain thy con- 

 summation." At length the God disappears, and Manikka- 

 VaQagar returns alone to the other devotees. Under the tree 

 they set up a lingam, and Avorship night and day. It was then 

 and there that the Saint began his poetical compositions.* 

 Twenty-one of the fifty-two lyrical compositions he has left 

 are marked as composed in Perun-Turrai. They are all full 

 of the glories of (^iva, the grace that found out and converted 

 the sinoer, and the grief he feels at his enforced absence from 

 his Master.! This last grief is intensified by the speedy 

 departure of his companions. One day as they are wor- 

 shipping, a mystic flame blazes up in the centre of the tank, 

 as (j)iva had announced beforehand, and they, casting them- 

 selves into it, disappear. 



And now the sage alone sits under the Konrrai tree from 

 whence ^iva had ascended, and utters his lamentations. 

 The marvellous poem, " The Sacred Century of Verse," 

 (numbered five in the collection,) was then composed. It 

 contains some of his finest verses. There then begins a new 

 phase of his life. He passes from town to town, worshipping at 

 each shrine and composing verses which are headed accord- 

 ing to the place of their composition. The places he visited 

 were however very few in comparison of those said to have 

 been hallowed by the presence of Sambandhar and the other 

 saints of the following cycle. 



The fifth canto brings the sage to the scene of his greatest 

 achievements and of his consummation, ^ithambaram. It 

 will be remarked that he goes back to Madura and the 

 Pandian kingdom no more. He is especially the saint of 

 ^ithambaram and the Cora kingdom. The remainder of his 

 history is a continued glorification of the great northern 

 shrine. Many of the hymns that he composed in reference to 

 the God as manifested in Tillai are exceedingly beautiful.^ 

 The note of sadness is almost absent, while the rapture of 

 constant worship in the court (Ambaram), where ^ivan's 

 dancing form is seen, fills him with rapture."^ 



* Note IX, " Tirvi-vacagam." 

 t See especially Lyric VI, " Forsaken." 

 t See Note VI, "Cithambaram." 

 ^ See Note VII, '"Bhakti.' 



