and to the latest 2706 B. C., but with special reference to the four Tamil kingdoms in which they were born.
The orthodox Vaishnavas believe that the Alvars were the incarnations of the sacred weapons, the sacred ornaments and the sacred vehicles of Vishnu. Of these saints Tiruppan and Madhurakavi will not detain us long; because, from a literary stand-point their contributions are almost trifling. The respective merits and the ages of the remaining Alvars will therefore be discussed in the following pages, leaving the miraculous incidents connected with their birth and life for the pious edification of the superstitiously orthodox Vaishnavas.
No necessity for an essay of this kind should have occurred, had there been at least one reliable and faithful biographv of the Vishnava Saints ; neither in Sanskrit nor in Tamil was there a single biographer of the type of a Boswell or a Lockhart. Legends of some kind or other are, however, not wanting among the Vaishnavas. One of these named the Guruparamparai or the “Genealogy of the Gurus' professes to give the lives of the Vaishnava Saints and Acharyas ; and the accounts of the Alvars described in it ippear to have been written after the fashion of the Periyapurana of the Saivas, the accuracy of the contents of both being highly questionable, as they are replete with miraculous incidents and anachronisms. We cannot expect more than these from the religious zealots of the combative
