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.The true import of the Vedas and Agamas was allowed to be lost in thejungle of rituals and dogmas.Tamil nadu [sic] the cradle of Saiva Siddhanta, hadbecome the breeding ground of false prophets who used religion and philosophyfor securing personal advantanges. 90 The antiritualism that Desikar refers to isa standard message of many of the ñnasiddhars, though this is not stressed in theÉTirumantiram.Desikar also introduces an idea not found in the Periya Purõam,that Tirumular s journey to the south is a return, namely, of the true import ofthe Vedas and Agamas, of the principles of Saiva Siddhanta, to the land of91[their] birth. This acrobatic interpretation effectively takes this knowledge thatthe Tirumantiram and the Periya Purõam depict as traveling from north to south,or from the heavens to the earth, or from Sanskrit to Tamil, and gives it Tamilorigins and thus Tamil credentials.Desikar s narrative is, however, ambivalent about the ethnicity of Tirumularhimself.Other authors go further, ascribing Tamil character not only to the agamicknowledge transmitted in the Tirumantiram but also to Tirumular himself.Somesimply ignore his exploits on Kailasa.N.Manikkavasagam, the editor of a popularcompilation of the verses of the ñnasiddhars, Cittar Pñalkaë (Verses of the sid-Édhars), gives a short biographical introduction to Tirumular s verses.He mentionsthe yogi s entry into the body of the shepherd Mulan, but makes no reference tohis residence in the Himalayas.92 He consistently emphasizes the Tamil characterof the siddhars and their verses, calling the literature of the siddhars honey pots ofrefined Tamil. Tamil is the chief throne of philosophical wisdom, and the Tamil 66 recipes for immortalityland is the famed shield of knowledge in the South. 93 Reference to Tirumular sascetic practice and revelations on Mt.Kailasa would undermine the Tamil creden-tials of the siddhars, so Manikkavasagam omits this part of the story.Others introduce new narrative elements that make Tirumular a Tamil bybirth.In an edition of the Periya Pur õam following the section on the life of,Tirumular, A.Chidambaranar gives a contemporary, expanded life history ofTirumular.In the Periya Purõam, Cekkilar has discussed at length the latter part ofthe history of Tirumular Nayanar, but he has included few details aboutthe earlier portion.Tirumular was named Sundarar by his motherand father.94 He was from southern Tamil Nadu.In his youth, he joinedthe Tamil academy of the sage Agastya on Mt.Potigai.He learned thetexts of the world, and excelling as a student, he became friends withAgastya, the head of the academy.Afterward, after learning philo-sophical texts under Agastya s tutelage, he joined the school which wasfunctioning at North Kailasa.There he learned the eternal Vedic gamasfrom Nandi, fully in Tamil, along with Janaka.[he lists six otherstudents].After completing the examination, he received the title of master from Nandi, and remained in Kailasa performing austerities.95Chidambaranar (1883 1954) was active in the Shaiva Siddhanta movement and inefforts to recover details of prehistorical Tamil lands.96 According to Chidambara-nar s revisionist history, Tirumular s residence on Kailasa was temporary, and heeventually returned to the south, rejoining the events as they are narrated in thePeriya Purõam.Instead of his life in Avadudurai being a transitory period (3,000years!) between more enduring periods on Kailasa, Chidambaranar inverts thishistory.He also makes Tamil the language of instruction on Kailasa, a departurefrom Tirumantiram s statement that Shiva taught in both Tamil and Sanskrit,which itself would have been a radical departure from the Sanskrit gamas.Recent dating by Tamil revivalist authors puts Tirumular somewhere betweenscholarly accounts (which range from about the fifth century c.e.to the twelfth cen-tury c.e.), and calculations based on the Tirumantiram, in which Tirumular claimsto live for seventy million yugas or eons, by which he means not a specific numberof years but simply a very, very long time (136).T.V.Sambasivam Pillai dates himto the first century b.c.e.97 In an introductory essay to the Shaiva Siddhanta edi-tion of the Tirumantiram, A.Chidambaranar concludes that he lived at the timeof the events of the Rmyaõa, about 6000 b.c.e., and holds that he lived for 5,900years.98 In his History of the Siddhars, S.P
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