Both the Saiva and Vaishnava textual tradition negated the Vedic orthodoxy and Smartha tradition practised during the era. Three stages have been identified in the evolution of Thevaram - first is the mark of Shiva as the supreme deity during the 7th - 9th century, the second involved Chola kings initiating the compilation of all the hymns and installing the images of the 3 saint poets during the 10th to 11th century and the last being the restructuring done by the pontiffs of the mathas who incorporated the hymns into Saiva Siddantha canon in the 13th century. The word DÄvÄram means garland of poems to the lord Evolution It is one of the important sources of Tamil Bhakti, a movement that inspired the agricultural community. The three poets were not only involved in portraying their personal devotion to Shiva, but also involved a community of believers through their songs. There are 796 of these songs with a total of more than 8200 stanzas. It was Thevaram for Saivism and Nalayira Divya Prabandam for Vaishanvism. The 276 temples revered by these verses are called paadal petra thalam and another 276 places having Shiva temples that are casually mentioned in the verses are classified as vaipu sthalam. It is during the Chola dynasty that Saivism came of age and Thevaram, with its body of texts on rituals, philosophy and theology, was canonized. In the tenth century, during the reign of Raja Raja Chola I, a collection of these songs was found abandoned in the Chidambaram temple, along with other religious literary works, and collated by Nambiyandar Nambi. The singing of Thevaram is continued as a hereditary practise in many Shiva temples in Tamil Nadu. All seven volumes are dedicated to the works of the three most prominent Tamil poets of the 7th century, the Nayanars - Sambandar, Tirunavukkarasar and Sundarar. The Thevaram (Tamil: தà¯à®µà®¾à®°à®®à¯ ThÄvÄram) denotes the first seven volumes of the Tirumurai, the twelve-volume collection of Åaiva devotional poetry.
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