The poet-saint Sambandar

Hindu sculptures depict not only deities but also human beings elevated to saintly status. In the areas of Southern India where the Tamil language is spoken, one of the most important saints devoted to Shiva was Sambandar. Probably born around the year 600, Sambandar is said to have begun composing poems to Shiva and Parvati when he was a small child. Here he is shown as a child, dancing in devotion. Later, he made pilgrimages to important shrines to Shiva, composing more poems and singing them at each one. His poems were collected and continue to be sung in southern Indian temples today.
How Sambandar Became a Saint When Sambandar was sixteen, his parents arranged for him to be married. Sambandar was reluctant. At the end of the huge wedding ceremony the saint “sang his final hymn in which he begged the Lord Shiva to unite with him and thus liberate him from all earthly ties, including marriage. At these words, a great blaze of light enveloped the saint and his wife. At Sambandar’s command the entire assembly entered the flame and thus joined the saint in his final beatific union with his God.”*
*Adapted from Indira Viswanathan Peterson, Poems to Siva: The Hymns of the Tamil Saints, 1989.