
Living as an offering to life around them, the Nayanmars have left behind Thevaram – an eternal treasure that gives us a taste of absolute dissolution and a profound insight into life. The celebrated Nayanmars are 63 mystics and sages, who inspired many by constantly living in a state of abandon and ecstasy. Blessed by Beings who lived in beautiful states of bhakti, the Tamil land has a rich heritage of literary work that was an outpouring of deep spiritual experience. Tamil culture has been deeply influenced by bhakti or devotion – by hearts that beat for the wellbeing of all life around them. Here, students of Isha Samskriti have rendered selections of Thevaram, as an offering to today’s world.ġ. The singing of Thevaram is still an active process in many Shiva temples in Tamil Nadu. The 275 temples mentioned in Thevaram are referred to as “Paadal Petra Thalam,” which literally means “the temples that were sung in the verses”. The Nayanmars travelled the length and breadth of South India, predominantly in current day Tamil Nadu, and the temples in this region find a place in their songs. The Isha Thevaram album is an effort to make these outpourings of immense devotion available to the modern era. Rendered in an ancient musical style that precedes most Indian classical music systems, these songs give us an insight into the wave of bhakti that swept across southern India during the 7th Century. Thevarams are devotional hymns sung in praise of Shiva by the 3 Nayanmars: Sambandar, Thirunavukkarasar and Sundarar.
