Cheraman Perumal

Cheraman Perumal Nāyanār was a king of the Chera country, ruling from Makotai — the region of Kodungallur, in present-day Kerala — and is counted among the sixty-three Nāyanārs. The tradition also names him Kazharitru Arivar. He is doubly remembered: as royal devotee, and as poet, three of whose works stand in the eleventh Tirumurai of the Tamil Shaiva canon.

The friendship

The axis of his hagiography is Sundarar. Drawn by the poet-saint's fame, the king travelled to Tiruvarur, and the two became inseparable friends — an attachment the tradition renders in journeys: pilgrimages made together through the shrines of the Chola country, and Sundarar's visit in return to the Chera capital, received with royal honour. The friendship of king and poet, crossing kingdoms, became one of the canon's emblematic pairings.

The poems

Three works are attributed to him: the Tirukailaya Nana Ula, the Ponvannattandadi, and the Tiruvarur Mummanikkovai. The first is conventionally counted the earliest surviving ulā — the Tamil genre that pictures the god in procession while women of every age are stirred by the sight — here staged in Kailasa itself, and the model for a long courtly tradition. Tradition even holds that the poem was composed in Shiva's presence and sent back to the world of men.

The ascent, and the name

The hagiographies end the two friends together. When Sundarar was borne to Kailasa on a white elephant, Cheraman Perumal, perceiving it, mounted his horse, spoke the five syllables in its ear, and followed through the air, arriving — the tradition allows itself the flourish — before his friend. One caution belongs in any account of him: Cheraman Perumal was a title borne by more than one Chera ruler, and quite different legends, including the well-known Kerala tradition of a Cheraman Perumal's conversion to Islam, attach to other bearers of the name. The Nāyanār of the Shaiva canon is a distinct figure and should not be conflated with them.