sects, who seem to bave compiled them from distorted traditions and hyperbolic accounts which had come down to them several centuries after the death of these saints. Some of these were based on the casual utterances which are to be found in the writings of the Alvars themselves. The admissions of the saints which were made out of modesty and humility were, in certain cases, taken for real facts, and afterwards woven into long stories with embellishments drawn chiefly from their imaginative brains. Wherever traditions or autobiographical statements were wanting the biographers also were silent. Thus the lives of Poigayar, Peyar and Pudattar are almost blank, as there are no personal references in their antadis, while those of Tirumalisaiyar, Tirumangai-Mannan, Tondaradippodi, Periyalvar and Andal are com. paratively full.
And yet to impose upon the credulous disciples the Vaishnava Acharyas have cooked up even the horoscopes of their saints The asterisms in which Pudattalvar and Poigaiyalvar were born, as given in the Guruparamparai, do not agree with those assigned to them by the following inscription of Vikrama Chola (A, D, 1118) at Kanchipuram :
திருவத் தியூ ராழ்வாரைப்பாடியருளின ஸ்ரீ பூதத்தாழ்வா ரும் ஸ்ரீ பொய்கை யாழ்வாரும் பிறந்த திருக் கேட்டைநாள் அரு ளாளப் பெருமாள் புறப்பட்டருளி ஏகாதசி திருமஞ்சனமும் Qu(36F (GOLSÓ 25w schəm &c. But it is said in later works that Poigaiyar was born at Kacchi in Tiruvonam and Pudattar at Mamalla in Avittam.
VIL
