Sadaiya

Sadaiya, or Sadaiyanar, is one of the sixty-three Nayanar saints of Tamil Shaivism, remembered as the father of Sundarar, the last of the three great Tevaram hymnists. He belonged to the Adishaiva priestly community of Tirunavalur in the northern Tamil country, where he served in the worship of Shiva; his wife was Isaignaniyar, herself counted among the saints.

In the canon

No separate legend attaches to Sadaiya — no ordeal, vow or miracle. His place among the Nayanars rests on his son’s own testimony: in the closing lines of the Tiruthondat Thogai, the hymn in which Sundarar first named the company of Shiva’s servants, the poet identifies himself as the son of Isaignani and of Sadaiyan. From that list the whole tradition of the sixty-three grew, and the parents named in its final verse were carried into the canon with it. Sekkilar accordingly gives Sadaiya his own brief chapter in the Periya Puranam, honouring in him the household that gave the tradition its poet. It is the quietest form of sainthood the canon admits, and a measure of how far the idea of service to Shiva could stretch.