Orthodoxy posits the number of Alvars as ten, though there are other references that include Andal and Madhurakavi Alvar, making the number 12. Traditionally, the Alvars are considered to have lived between 4200 BCE and 2700 BCE. Many modern academics place the lifetime of the Alvars between the 5th century and 9th century CE. They are venerated in Vaishnavism, which regards Vishnu as the Ultimate Reality.
Hymns for the Drowning is a worthy successor to Speaking of Siva.The Alvars ( Tamil: ஆழ்வார், romanized: Āḻvār, lit.'The Immersed') were the Tamil poet-saints of South India who espoused bhakti (devotion) to the Hindu preserver deity Vishnu, in their songs of longing, ecstasy, and service. They also enact a progression – from wonder at the Lord’s works, to the experience of loving him and watching others love him, to moods of questioning and despair and finally to the experience of being devoured and possessed by him.
In this selection from his works, the translations like the originals reflect the alternations of philosophic hymns and love poems, through recurring voices, roles, and places. Nammalvar, the greatest of the alvars, composed four works, of which the Tiruvaymoli was the most important. These devotees of Visnu and their counterparts, the devotees of Siva (nayanmar), changed and revitalized Hinduism and their devotional hymns addressed to Visnu are among the earliest bhakti (devotional) texts in any Indian language.
Tradition recognizes twelve alvars, saint-poets devoted to Visnu, who lived between the sixth and ninth century in the Tamil-speaking region of South India. In many ways a companion volume to A K Ramanujan’s acclaimed Speaking of Siva, the eighty-three here are by Nammalvar, the celebrated saint-poet of the ninth century. The poems in this book are some of the earliest about Visnu, one of the Hindu Trinity, also known as Tirumal, the Dark One.
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