The Periya Puranam and Sundarar's Tiruttondartokai are additional early records and provide a comprehensive hagiography on him. Other sources are the Nambiyandar Nambi's Tiru Tondar Tiruvandadi and a few inscriptions in Tamil Shiva temples about patikam singers that can be dated around the 9th century. In the Periya Puranam, Sambandar is said to have been a child prodigy, one who began composing hymns as soon as he started speaking as a baby and who mastered the Vedas by age three. His gifts were attributed to being breastfed by the Shakti goddess Umadevi. As a child poet-saint, he attracted throngs of audiences, travelled through Tamil lands to Shiva temples accompanied by musician Tirunilakantayalppanar, composing melodious hymns in complex meters and rhythms. The hymn III.345 of Tevaram depicts Jain monks persecuting him and trying to burn a palm-leaf manuscript of his hymn, but the fire does not burn it. On the request of queen Mangayarkkarasiyar, Sambandar went to Madurai to counter the Jain monks in her husband's court. There the Jain monks allegedly attempt to burn the house he was staying in, but he remains unharmed. Then he is challenged to a debate by the Jain monks with the condition that the losing side convert to the winning side, or commit suicide by impaling themselves to death. Sambandar defeats the monks in debate, the Pandya king and some Jains convert to Saivism. Other Jain monks die in Madurai of impalement in the aftermath. Sambandar died around 655 CE at the age of 16, on the day of his wedding when Shiva met him and took his relatives and him to his abode. The first three volumes of the Tirumurai contain 383 poems (some editions 384), composed of 4,181 stanzas, attributed to Sambandar, which are all that survive out of a reputed of 16,000 hymns. His verses were set to tune on yal or lute by Sambandar's constant companion Tiru Nilakanta Yazhpanar (Nilakantaperumanar). Appar Appar, also known as Tirunavukkaracar, was born in the late 6th century or the early 7th century in a Vellala peasant family. From the Shaiva Shudra caste, he was an orphan raised by his sister. He spent his childhood in Tiruvamur village near Atikai by most accounts. His childhood name was Marunikkiyar (Marulneekiar). Zvelebil dates his birth to between 570–596 CE. Details of Appar's life are found in his own hymns and in Sekkizhar's Periya Puranam. His sister Thilagavathiar