Tēvāram Songs

tiruñāṉacampantar

tirunāvukkaracar

cuntarara mūrti

Tevaram are ancient Tamil poems on Siva,sung by Saiva saints who lived in the 7th and 8th cent, that is they are one thousand three hundred year old songs. Sambandar, Appar and Sundarar were the three Saiva saints who visited many temples in Tamilnad like Chidambaram, Madurai, Ramesvaram and so many other temples. They have sung generally one patikam consisting of ten or eleven verses like in Vedic hymns such as Sri Rudram, on Siva of that temple. These songs have been collected into a number of books called Thirumurais.

The first three books consist of the songs of Saint Sambandar, the fourth, fifth and sixth books consist of Saint Appar and the seventh book that of Saint Sundarar. They belong essentially to the Vedic tradition and depict episodes described in the Mahāpurānās and the local legends called sthala Purānās. They are sung to this day in the temples of Tamilnad by a family of musicians called Oduvars, in the ancient system of music, called pans, equal to classical ragas, like Gandhara, satari, kaisiki and others, daily as a part of temple rituals. They are full of devotion and rythmic that it is a religious experience to listen to them. They are thus the greatest stotras and revered as Vedas.

Their life has influenced the life of the Tamil people for the past several hundred years. These can be sung by people of different languages and this attempt is to make them available in all scripts of India. Those who would like to learn them can now do so in their own regional script. The contents of these poems are in all Indian characters. However as the language is Tamil, the same songs are given in Roman script with dia-critical marks to aid correct pronunciation.

There are Tamils residing in other parts of India who do not know Tamil script but know the regional script as at Bengal, Delhi, or Bombay. There also many who are people of other languages,who know Tamil language but not Tamil script especially in southern India as in Kannada, Telugu, Malayalam, or Oriyya, regions who can now read these songs in their script and if needed can take out the required songs in their own script and learn them. In many parts of the world there are many children learning Bharatanātyam dance and they could use them in their own script. For correct pronunciation they could use these songs in Roman script with dia-critical marks. We are not giving meanings at present. There are other sites that provide meanings.

We will be happy if for any suggestions or corrections.

We are extremely thankful to Pujya Swamiji Dayananda Swamiji, who is an embodiment of Indian knowledge, the very Maharishi, and who is supporting the spread of Teveram in a very big way and also supporting the Traditional Tevaram singers, to bless our effort in this venture, and give us a message of blessings - Anugraha that appears at the beginning. We offer these poems as our offerings of divine flowers. These were originally posted in our website - Tamil Arts academy.com, in the year 2004-05 and were available in Tamil and Roman scripts for a couple of years and were later withdrawn for further work. The programmer of this multi lingual script presentation is Mohan Nagaswamy, at Miami, Florida, USA.

ஜெர்மானிய நாட்டு கொலோன் மாநகர பல்கலைக்கழகப் பேராசிரியர் டாக்டர். மால்டன் அவர்களின் உதவிக்கும் அன்புக்கும் பண்புக்கும் தமிழ் ஆர்ட்ஸ் அகெடமி நன்றியைத் தெரிவித்து கொள்கிறது.

Entire work has been transliterated into english with diacritical marks. For viewing the these great works in enlish please download Indic Times font

R.Nagaswamy