The Life
Sundaranathar, a yogi-siddha schooled at the feet of Nandi on Mount Kailash, journeyed south to meet the sage Agastya. Near Sathanur, close to Thiruvavaduthurai, he came upon a herd of cows weeping over their dead cowherd, Mulan. Moved by compassion and by his yogic power, the sage left his own body and entered Mulan's, tending the cattle and returning them home. When he sought his original body it had vanished by Shiva's will, so he remained as Mulan and was thereafter called Thirumular. Seated beneath a peepal tree at Thiruvavaduthurai, he entered deep samadhi, rising once each year to utter a single verse; over three thousand years he composed the three thousand hymns of the Thirumandiram, the foundational scripture of Tamil Shaiva Siddhanta.