Sambandar (Tamil: சம்பந்தர், romanized: Campantar), also known as Thirugnana Sambandar (Tamil: திருஞானசம்பந்தர், romanized: Tiruñāṉacampantar), was a Shaiva poet-saint from Tamil Nadu, India, who lived in the 7th century CE. He is one of the most prominent of the sixty-three Nayanars, the Tamil Shaiva bhakti saints, and is counted among the Mūvar (the "foremost three") along with Appar (Thirunavukkarasar) and Sundarar.
Life and Hagiography
Information about Sambandar comes primarily from the Periya Puranam, an 11th-century Tamil hagiography of the Nayanars, as well as earlier works such as the Tiruttondartokai and Tiru Tondar Tiruvandadi. According to these texts, Sambandar was born to Sivapada Hrudiyar and Bhagavathiar, a Shaivite Brahmin family in Sirkazhi, Tamil Nadu. A well-known legend recounts that when he was three years old, his parents took him to a Shiva temple, where Shiva and his consort Parvati appeared before him. Parvati is said to have fed him milk, and when his father later saw drops of milk on the child's mouth and asked who had fed him, the boy pointed to the sky and sang Todudaya Seviyan, the first verse of the Tevaram. He is said to have mastered the Vedas at age three. According to tradition, Sambandar merged with the divine effulgence at the age of sixteen, during his wedding ceremony, in the Tamil month of Vaikasi.
Compositions and Legacy
Sambandar is traditionally credited with composing 16,000 hymns in complex meters, of which 383 (or 384) hymns comprising 4,181 stanzas have survived. These compositions are preserved in the first three volumes of the Tirumurai (called Thirukkadik kaappu), the canonical works of Tamil Shaiva Siddhanta. His hymns express an intense loving devotion (bhakti) to the Hindu god Shiva and form a foundational part of Shaiva Siddhanta philosophy.
Sambandar's works helped bridge the Vedic tradition with the Agamic temple tradition. According to scholar John Cort, Sambandar's hymns emphasize the namah sivaya mantra as "the essence of the four Vedas," shifting the focus from Brahmin-mediated Vedic ritual to a direct, personal connection between the devotee and Shiva.
Historical Context and Inscriptions
An inscription of Rajaraja Chola I at Tiruvarur mentions Sambandar along with Appar, Sundarar, and Sundarar's wife Nangai Paravaiyar. Other inscriptions from the 8th to 16th centuries reference the musical bhakti singing tradition founded by Sambandar and other Nayanars, with singers referred to as Tirupadiyam Vinnapam seyvar or Pidarar. Rajaraja Chola I is recorded as having deputed 48 such singers (pidarars) and made provisions for their maintenance.
Iconography
Sambandar's image is found in almost all Shiva temples of Tamil Nadu. He is typically depicted as a dancing child or young teen with his right forefinger pointing upward, symbolically crediting Parvati and Shiva for his wisdom. Notable Chola bronze sculptures of Sambandar, dating to approximately the 12th century, are preserved in the Government Museum, Chennai.
Translations
Francis Kingsbury and Godfrey Phillips selected and translated 24 of Sambandar's hymns into English in 1921, published in Hymns of the Tamil Śaivite Saints (Oxford University Press). Indira Peterson has published a more recent and extensive translation of his hymns in Poems to Siva: The Hymns of the Tamil Saints (1989).
