Campantar
Encyclopedia
Tamil Nadu
Tamil Nadu is one of the 28 states of India. Its capital and largest city is Chennai. Tamil Nadu lies in the southernmost part of the Indian Peninsula and is bordered by the union territory of Pondicherry, and the states of Kerala, Karnataka, and Andhra Pradesh...
who lived around the 7th century CE.
He is one of the most prominent of the sixty-three Nayanars
Nayanars
The Nayanars or Nayanmars were Shaivite devotional poets of Tamil Nadu, active between the fifth and the tenth centuries CE...
, Tamil
Tamil people
Tamil people , also called Tamils or Tamilians, are an ethnic group native to Tamil Nadu, India and the north-eastern region of Sri Lanka. Historic and post 15th century emigrant communities are also found across the world, notably Malaysia, Singapore, Mauritius, South Africa, Australia, Canada,...
Saiva bhakti
Bhakti movement
The Bhakti movement is a Hindu religious movement in which the main spiritual practice is loving devotion among the Shaivite and Vaishnava saints. The Bhakti movement originated in ancient Tamil Nadu and began to spread to the north during the late medieval ages when north India was under Islamic...
saints who lived between the sixth and the tenth centuries CE. Campantar's hymns to Shiva
Shiva
Shiva is a major Hindu deity, and is the destroyer god or transformer among the Trimurti, the Hindu Trinity of the primary aspects of the divine. God Shiva is a yogi who has notice of everything that happens in the world and is the main aspect of life. Yet one with great power lives a life of a...
were later collected to form the first three volumes of the Tirumurai
Tirumurai
The word Thirumurai literally means the sacred book. It is a compendium of songs or hymns in the praise of Shiva in the Tamil language...
, the religious canon of Tamil Saiva Siddhanta. He was a contemporary of Appar, another Saiva saint.
Life
Information about Campantar comes mainly from the Periya PuranamPeriya Puranam
Periya Puranam , that is, the great purana or epic, sometimes also called Tiruttontarpuranam is a Tamil poetic account depicting the legendary lives of the sixty-three Nayanars, the canonical poets of Tamil Shaivism. It was compiled during the 12th century by Sekkizhar...
, the eleventh-century Tamil book on the Nayanars that forms the last volume of the Tirumurai, along with the earlier Tiruttondartokai, poetry by Cuntarar and Nambiyandar Nambi
Nambiyandar Nambi
Tirunarayur Nambiyandar Nambi was an eleventh-century Shaiva scholar of Tamil Nadu in South India who compiled the hymns of Sampantar, Appar and Sundarar and was himself one of the authors of the eleventh volume of the canon of the Tamil liturgical poetry of Shiva, the Tirumurai.Nambiyandar was...
's Tiru Tondar Tiruvandadi. A Sanskrit
Sanskrit
Sanskrit , is a historical Indo-Aryan language and the primary liturgical language of Hinduism, Jainism and Buddhism.Buddhism: besides Pali, see Buddhist Hybrid Sanskrit Today, it is listed as one of the 22 scheduled languages of India and is an official language of the state of Uttarakhand...
hagiography
Hagiography
Hagiography is the study of saints.From the Greek and , it refers literally to writings on the subject of such holy people, and specifically to the biographies of saints and ecclesiastical leaders. The term hagiology, the study of hagiography, is also current in English, though less common...
called Brahmapureesa Charitam is now lost. The first volumes of the Tirumurai contain three hundred and eighty-four poems of Campantar, all that survive out of a reputed more than 10,000 hymns.
Campantar was born to Sivapada Hrudiyar and his wife Bhagavathiar who lived in Sirkazhi
Sirkazhi
Sirkazhi , is a city and a municipality in Nagapattinam district in the Indian state of Tamil Nadu. It is located just 10 km from the Bay of Bengal; 5 km from Kollidam; 20 km from Chidambaram; 250 km from Chennai and 90 km from Pondicherry.-Geography:Sirkazhi is located at...
in Tamil Nadu
Tamil Nadu
Tamil Nadu is one of the 28 states of India. Its capital and largest city is Chennai. Tamil Nadu lies in the southernmost part of the Indian Peninsula and is bordered by the union territory of Pondicherry, and the states of Kerala, Karnataka, and Andhra Pradesh...
. They were Saivite brahmin
Brahmin
Brahmin Brahman, Brahma and Brahmin.Brahman, Brahmin and Brahma have different meanings. Brahman refers to the Supreme Self...
s. The group of servitors wore a tuft on top of their head as can be seen in all ancient murals of tirugnanasambandar (like for example in temples of tiru ambar, kudavayil, tirumakaalam and vilamar etc.), all statues and even paintings. The ancient literature has referred to this visual identification as "koor kondrai vaar chadai"( a knot that is on top of head and tilted). The ancient hagiographies have also noted this and so do the writings of subsequent periods. The knot is similar to the ones of "the three thousand ones of chidambaram", that sambandar praises in his hymn at chidambaram. Both sambandar and sundarar have themselves referred to this in their respective hymns. There is evidence to point that at that point of time the group worked on Rig veda. Sankaracharya who lived in the subsequent century has referred to him in one hymn of his Saundarya Lahari, praising him as a gifted Tamil child ("dravida sisu") who was fed with milk of divine gnosis
Gnosis
Gnosis is the common Greek noun for knowledge . In the context of the English language gnosis generally refers to the word's meaning within the spheres of Christian mysticism, Mystery religions and Gnosticism where it signifies 'spiritual knowledge' in the sense of mystical enlightenment.-Related...
by the goddess Uma
Parvati
Parvati is a Hindu goddess. Parvati is Shakti, the wife of Shiva and the gentle aspect of Mahadevi, the Great Goddess...
. According to legend, when Campantar was three years old his parents took him to the Shiva
Shiva
Shiva is a major Hindu deity, and is the destroyer god or transformer among the Trimurti, the Hindu Trinity of the primary aspects of the divine. God Shiva is a yogi who has notice of everything that happens in the world and is the main aspect of life. Yet one with great power lives a life of a...
temple where Shiva and his consort Parvati
Parvati
Parvati is a Hindu goddess. Parvati is Shakti, the wife of Shiva and the gentle aspect of Mahadevi, the Great Goddess...
appeared before the child. His father saw drops of milk on the child's mouth and asked who had fed him, whereupon the boy pointed to the sky and responded with the song Todudaya Seviyan, the first verse of the Tevaram. At his investiture with the sacred thread, at the age of seven, he is said to have expounded the Vedas with great clarity. Campantar attained liberation (mukti) in "Visaka Nakshtara" in the Tamil month of "Visakam" at the age of sixteen soon after his marriage.
He went to Madurai
Madurai
Madurai is the third largest city in the Indian state of Tamil Nadu and one of the oldest continuously inhabited cities in the world. It served as the capital city of the Pandyan Kingdom. It is the administrative headquarters of Madurai District and is famous for its temples built by Pandyan and...
during the reign of the Pandyan Dynasty King, Koon Pandiyan
Koon Pandiyan
Koon pandiyan was a king who ruled Madurai around 7th century. He is infamous for his massacre of 8000 Jain priests during his reign. He is one among the 63 Nayanars.-Conversion:...
(கூன் பாண்டியன்). In the first half of the seventh century, the most popular faiths in south India were Jainism
Jainism
Jainism is an Indian religion that prescribes a path of non-violence towards all living beings. Its philosophy and practice emphasize the necessity of self-effort to move the soul towards divine consciousness and liberation. Any soul that has conquered its own inner enemies and achieved the state...
and Buddhism
Buddhism
Buddhism is a religion and philosophy encompassing a variety of traditions, beliefs and practices, largely based on teachings attributed to Siddhartha Gautama, commonly known as the Buddha . The Buddha lived and taught in the northeastern Indian subcontinent some time between the 6th and 4th...
. The Pandyan king had converted to Jainism: Sekkizhar
Sekkizhar
Sekkizhar was a poet and scholar of Tamil Shaiva Siddhanta, a Saiva saint contemporary with the reign of Kulothunga Chola II. He compiled and wrote the Periya Puranam , 4253 verses long,recounting the life stories of the sixty-three Shaiva Nayanars, the poets of Shiva who composed the liturgical...
in more than 20 long verses scorned the conspiracy of the Jains. It is said that his queen Mangayarkarasi (மங்கையர்கரசி) invited Sambandhar. As a wandering minstrel Campantar sang hymns opposing Jain and Buddhist thought and is credited with the conversion of the Pandya king from Jainism. It is said to have been by the advice of Campantar that the king ordered a massacre of 8000 Jainas. சாமநத்தம் சமணர் கழுவேற்றம்
Shrines
An inscription of Rajaraja Chola IRajaraja Chola I
Raja Raja Chola I born Arunmozhi Thevar , popularly known as Raja Raja the Great, is one of the greatest emperors of the Tamil Chola Empire of India who ruled between 985 and 1014 CE...
at Tiruvarur
Tiruvarur
Tiruvarur is a town and a municipality in Tiruvarur district in the Indian state of Tamil Nadu. Tiruvarur is the administrative headquarters of Tiruvarur district. Tiruvarur is one of the oldest towns which has been popular as cultural head quarters for many centuries...
mentions Campantar along with Appar, Cuntarar and the latter's wife Nangai Paravaiyar.
Sources
- Encyclopaedia of Jainism, Volume 1 By Narendra Singh
- Hymns of the Tamil Śaivite saints By Francis Kingsbury