Kazharsinga

Kazharsinga is one of the sixty-three Nayanar saints of Tamil Shaivism, a Pallava monarch whose chapter in the Periya Puranam turns on a single episode of terrible royal consistency. Attempts to match him with a particular historical Pallava remain inconclusive.

The story

The legend, told by Sekkilar, unfolds at the great temple of Tiruvarur, which the king visited with his queen. There the queen picked up a flower that had fallen from the offerings gathered for Shiva and raised it to her nose. Seruthunai, a devotee serving in the temple, saw the sacrilege — a flower destined for the god, defiled by human enjoyment — and cut off her nose on the spot. Brought before the king, the matter took its famous turn: Kazharsinga ruled that the servant had punished the wrong member first, for it was the hand that had lifted the flower. He severed the queen’s hand himself.

Reading the legend

The story is paired in the canon with that of Seruthunai, the two saints made by a single incident. Like other violent Nayanar tales it is hagiographic argument, not chronicle: a king who holds his own consort to the temple’s law demonstrates that before Shiva no rank protects and no tie excuses. It was for this zeal on behalf of the devotees’ honour that the tradition counted him a saint.