Sambandar also referred to as Thirugnana Sambandar was a Saiva poet-saint of Tamil Nadu who lived sometime in the 7th century. He was a child prodigy who lived just 16 years. According to the Tamil Shaiva tradition, he composed an oeuvre of 16,000 hymns in complex meters, of which 383 (384) hymns with 4,181 stanzas have survived.[3] These narrate an intense loving devotion (bhakti) to the Hindu god Shiva. The surviving compositions of Sambandar are preserved in the first three volumes of the Tirumurai, and provide a part of the philosophical foundation of Shaiva Siddhanta. He is one of the most prominent of the sixty-three Nayanars, Tamil Saiva bhakti saints who lived between the sixth and the tenth centuries CE. He was a contemporary of Appar, another Saiva poet-saint.Information about Sambandar comes mainly from the Periya Puranam, the eleventh-century Tamil book on the Nayanars compiled by Sekkizhaar. Sambandar is the first poet-saint featured in the Tirumurai, the canonical works of Tamil Saiva Siddhanta. His compositions grace Volume I, II and III of the twelve Thirumurai He has been highly influential on Tamil Shaivism.
