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Nāthamuni

Nāthamuni

823 CE · Vīranārāyaṇapuram (Kāṭṭumannārkōil)

c. 10th c. CE (traditionally said to have lived a very long life; precise dates disputed)

Nāthamuni (Raṅganātha Muni) stands at the head of the line of Śrī Vaiṣṇava ācāryas. Tradition credits him with rediscovering the lost Tamil devotional hymns of the Āḻvārs and compiling them as the Nālāyira Divya Prabandham ('Four Thousand Divine Verses'), establishing their recitation in temple worship and thereby fusing the emotional Tamil bhakti stream with the Sanskrit philosophical tradition. He is associated with Śrīraṅgam and is said to have authored the Nyāyatattva and Yogarahasya (largely lost). His grandson was Yāmunācārya, and the lineage runs from him to Rāmānuja. His dates are placed in the 10th century, with the usual hagiographic stretching of his lifespan.

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Vīranārāyaṇapuram (Kāṭṭumannārkōil)

What they did here

Traditional birthplace of Nāthamuni.

About Vīranārāyaṇapuram (Kāṭṭumannārkōil)

Vīranārāyaṇapuram (modern Kāṭṭumannārkōil), near Chidambaram in the Cuddalore district of Tamil Nadu, south India. It is the birthplace of Nāthamuni (c. 9th–10th c.), the first of the Śrī Vaiṣṇava ācāryas, who compiled the Tamil hymns of the Āḷvārs into the Nālāyira Divya Prabandham.

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The world in their lifetime

Thinkers, teachers, and rulers whose lives overlapped with Nāthamuni’s — a glimpse of the wider world they lived in. Drawn purely from recorded birth and death years.

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