and Ton.t.arat.ippot.i may have been temple priests, but the ritual system
(Vaikha ̄nasa, Pa ̄ñcara ̄tra, or other) they practiced is not known. Like other devo-
tees of their time, the A ̄l
̄
va ̄rs were probably often engaged in pilgrimage, since
their poems praise the presiding deities of 97 south Indian Vais.n.ava temples.
These poems exhibit a high degree of learning and literary skill and can hardly
be termed as “popular literature.”
Yogic practices like meditation play an important role in the Divyapraband-
ham. The earlier A ̄l
̄
va ̄rs, Poykai, Pu ̄tattu, Pe ̄y and Tirumal
̄icai sing of the mystic
union with Ma ̄yo ̄n
̄
(Kr.s.n.a) attained through meditation and temple worship.
Namma ̄l
̄
va ̄r (Cat.ako ̄pan
̄), a later A ̄l
̄va ̄r (seventh or early eighth century), is pre-
sumably the first to express devotion to Ma ̄yo ̄n
̄
in terms of the passionate love of
a girl for her beloved (Hardy 1983: 307). Several poems of the Divyapraband-
ham seem to show a kind of nondualism between the individual soul and God
and even the notion of release obtained while alive (Hardy 1983: 440–1).
Though they cannot be said to illustrate a particular theological system, they
could be considered as poetical formulations of attitudes comparable to those
found in the NP and in the Vaikha ̄nasasma ̄rtasu ̄tra.
Soon after the last A ̄l
̄
va ̄r, South Indian Vais.n.ava traditions encouraged the dif-
fusion of the Divyaprabandham. Hagiography credits (S ́rı ̄ran.ga-)Na ̄thamuni
(probably tenth century) with the rediscovery of these poems. From his time
onwards, the 4,000 stanzas of the Divyaprabandham were canonized and
recited in the Shrirangam temple, a practice which spread to other Vais.n.ava
temples in South India. The Ko ̄yil Ol
̄
uku, chronicle of the Shrirangam temple,
describes the duties of the Araiyars or Vin.n.appañ-ceyva ̄r, literally “supplicants”
who were and still are, in charge of chanting and illustrating (by stylized ges-
tures) the Divyaprabandham and enacting simple religious dramas. The oldest
known inscription mentioning the Araiyars goes back to the end of the eleventh
century. Today, male descendants of hereditary lineages of Araiyars perform in
three temples of Tamil Nadu (Shrivilliputtur, Shrirangam, and Alvar-tirunagari)
and in the temple of Melkote in Karnataka (Hari Rao 1961: 78–9, 90;
Ve ̄n.kat.ara ̄man
̄
1985).Sa ̄ttvatas and Bha ̄gavatas
Sa ̄ttvatas and Bha ̄gavatas formed groups which are difficult to identify since the
meaning of these terms changed according to the historical context. Though
Sa ̄ttvata (sometimes in the orthography Sa ̄tvata) sometimes appears to be
synonymous with Pa ̄ñcara ̄tra (Matsubara 1994: 60–2), it may not always
have been the case as we saw in a passage of the NP. A ninth-century Cambodian
inscription (stele of Prasat Komnap) which records the foundation by
Ya s ́ovarman I of a Vais.n.ava monastery (vais.n.ava ̄s ́rama) designed to feed
Va i s.n.avas, mentions three denominations among them: pañcara ̄tra,bha ̄gavata,
andsa ̄ttvatas, but it does not yield any precise definition of sa ̄ttvata (Cœdès 1932:
88–112).
238 gérard colas