on how to achieve both spiritual succor and material wealth in life. He seeks the latter to provide for his family and to pay for the charitable temple kitchen that fed hundreds of Shaiva pilgrims. Shiva becomes his patron king, grants him grain, gold and a flashing sword. This is embedded symbolism to inspire regional kings and wealthy patrons to support the spiritual and charitable works at Shiva temples. Sundarar is the author of 1,026 poems compiled as the Tirumurai'''s seventh volume. The hymns The Tevaram has 796 hymns. Each hymn contains pathikam (), also spelled patikam (from Sanskrit padya, verses). Predominantly all hymns of Tevaram contain ten or eleven verses. Each verse is a four line melodic stanza with an embedded refrain. The hymns of Sambandar and Sundarar also embed a signature or coda in the last verse, where the poet-saint shares some personal information, or the benefits of listening to or singing that hymn, or the context of that hymn. The hymns of Appar too include a signature or coda in the last verse, but they characteristically are linked to the Ramayana through Ravana's mythical devotion before he lost his way and turned evil. The hymns are set to music denoted by panns with a ragam and talam. The traditional manuscripts arrange the hymns according to musical modes, or panmurai. The Tevaram hymns are set to 23 of the 103 pan scale modes of Ancient Tamil music, and they are meant to be sung while accompanied with a stringed musical instrument such as the Tamil yal. Professional singing of the Tevaram hymns at large Shiva temples has been a Tamil tradition since at least the 11th century. Several of these poems refer to historic references pointing to the saint-poets' own life, voice of devotee persona, using interior language of the mystic. Of the three, Sambandar's life is better interpreted by his verses. According to Zvelebil, the child-prodigy Sambandar's lyrics are characterized by egocentricism, by militancy and great ardour, by a warm feeling for the greatness and beauty of Tamil language with scholarly experimentation in meters showing familiarity with Sanskrit forms. Zvelebil quotes a current Tamil saying, "My Appar sang of me, Sambandar sang of himself, Sundarar sang of women". The lyrical beauty of the original Tamil verses is often untranslatable into English. Sisir Kumar Das regards this poem by Sambandar as exemplifying the structural and thematic distinctiveness of