The biographer's view

Cēkkiḻār was the self-appointed custodian of the lives of the Tamil Śiva-bhakti saints. He is the author of the Tiruttoṇṭar Purāṇam (“Story of the Holy Saints”), more familiarly known as the Periya Purāṇam (“Great Story”). According to a biography written about him some two centuries after his lifetime, he hailed from the northern area of Tamil country (Toṇṭai region), and his given name was Aruṇmoḻi Tēvar or “Master of grace-filled language”; the name he is remembered by relates to his status as a member of the Vēḷāḷa caste, traditional, well-to-do Tamil agriculturalists. He became a court minister. The enchantment of a Chola dynasty king, Aṉapayaṉ, now identified by most as Kulōttuṅka II (r. 1133–50), with a Jain epic, the Cīvakacintāmaṇi (“Wish Fulfilling Gem”), which describes the making of a Jain saint out of a young man from the warrior caste, challenged Cēkkiḻār to write about the Śaiva saints. This he did in Chidambaram; his completed text received much honor then, being paraded on the back of an elephant and read aloud at a year-long ceremony. ¹