may have more ancient roots than the 6th century. According to Champakalakshmi, there were at least three stages in the evolution of Tevaram: first was the composition of the hymns by the Tevaram trio, then these were adopted in temple rituals and festivals by patikam singers, and thereafter came a conscious 11th-century structuring of these poems into a canonized text. The last stage was assisted by the pontiffs of the mathas (monasteries) who incorporated the hymns into the Shaiva Siddhanta canon in the 13th century. Significance Tevaram text has been called as a Shaiva "Tamil-vētam" (a Tamil Veda) in Volume 4 of the Madras Tamil Lexicon. This equivalence with the ancient Hindu Vedas has been explained by the Tamil Shaiva scholars in that the Tevaram "resembles the Vedic hymns" by being poetry of the "highest order" that also systematically builds the philosophical foundations of Shaivism. It differs from the ancient Vedas in that it focuses on intense bhakti for Shiva. The Tevaram helped structure a devotional tradition with its own authoritative canon, and thereby negated the primacy of Vedic orthodoxy and Smartha tradition, states Champakalakshmi. Yet they extend rather than reject the Vedic tradition. The hymns, states Peterson, directly praise the four Vedas and Sanskrit, adding that devotion to Shiva is same as these. For example, in Appar VI.301.1, the Tevaram states "See him who is Sanskrit of the North, and southern Tamil, and the four Vedas". Such themes appear repeatedly in this text. Thus, Tevaram is not antagonistic to the Vedic tradition, it compliments and redirects the devotee to bhakti through songs and music, for the same spiritual pursuit. In their structure and focus, the patikams (praise poem) of the Tevaram are "closely associated with early Sanskrit strotas" of the types found in Bhagavad Gita, the Bharavi, some compositions of Kalidasa and some chapters of the epic Mahabharata, all dated between about the 2nd century BCE and the 5th century CE, states Peterson. The melodic prosody, structure and genre that the Tevaram exemplifies has roots and illustrations in the Satarudriya of the Yajurveda, an ancient prototypical devotional hymn to Rudra-Shiva. According to Sabaratnam, the Tevaram verses were more oriented towards the folk tradition. It used the Tamil language and thus set aside the primacy of Sanskrit liturgies in religious matters. Tevaram made the direct devotion to Shiva more easily accessible to the people. Poets The first three volumes of