known as Tirumurai Kanda Cholan meaning one who saved the Tirumurai. The king added the images of the Nayanar poet-saints inside the Shiva temple. Nambi arranged the hymns of three saint poets Sambanthar, Appar and Sundarar as the first seven books. In 1918, 11 more songs were found engraved in a stone temple in Tiruvidavayil in a village close to Nannillam, and it was the first instance found where Tevaram verses were found in inscriptions. Translations Francis Kingsbury and Godfrey Phillips selected and translated 39 out of 313 of Appar's hymns into English in 1921. These were published with small collection of Sambandar and Sundarar hymns in a book titled Hymns of the Tamil Śaivite Saints, released by the Oxford University Press. They stated that these were some of the hymns from Devaram (Tevaram) that they could hear being chanted in South Indian Shiva temples of their times. In 1959, Dorai Rangaswamy published a prose translation with commentary on about 100 Appar's hymns in Volume 3 of his collected works on Tevaram. More recent English translations of many more select hymns by Appar have been published by Indira Peterson. Legacy Appar is traditionally credited with converting the Pallava king, Mahendravarman to Saivaism. His efforts helped expand the sacred geography of Shaivism and bring fame to smaller Shiva temples. Appar sanctified all these temples by his verses and was also involved in cleaning of the dilapidated temples with his uzhavarapadai (farmer's gardening hoe) – now a part of his iconography. Temple services Appar celebrated the Vedas, and connected the Vedic ritual to the temple Agamic puja that is ever since followed in Shiva temples. According to John Cort – a scholar of Jainism and Hinduism studies, the Agamic temple rituals perpetuate the Vedic practices. Appar and other Nayanars helped transform this "as the central element of the Saiva Siddhanta philosophical and theological system, and thus of Tamil Saiva soteriology", states Cort, by emphasizing the instrumentality and efficacy of the temple and its rituals. According to Appar and others, the Vedic and the Agamic overlap, are alternate roads to the same spiritual end, both evoke a transformation in the devotee, with the difference that temple-based Saiva puja alone is emphasized in the tradition that Appar and other Nayanars helped create. Appar's tradition has thrived in Tamil Shiva temples. Odhuvars, Sthanikars, or Kattalaiyars offer musical programmes in Shiva temples of Tamil Nadu by