Meena, a history student from Madurai, visits a large temple where priests sing old Tamil hymns during the daily worship, and the image of a poet-saint stands near the main deity. Her guide tells her that the poet-saint once walked from place to place, singing in praise of his god. In the temple library she finds a large anthology of poems by the Alvars and the verses of a Tamil woman poet who calls herself the beloved of her god. She also reads a scholar's note on quarrels between groups who followed different paths of worship in early medieval India.
Suppose the poet-saint in the guide's story was a devotee of Shiva who lived in about the sixth century. To which group of bhakti saints did he belong?
Answer & explanation
Correct answer: option 2
The correct answer is Option (2) → Nayanars
Option (1) Alvars — Incorrect. The Alvars were also early Tamil saints who travelled singing hymns, but they were devotees of Vishnu.
Option (2) Nayanars — Correct. The <strong>Nayanars</strong> were leaders who were <strong>devotees of Shiva</strong>. Along with the Alvars, they led some of the earliest bhakti movements, about the sixth century, and travelled singing Tamil hymns.
Option (3) Lingayats — Incorrect. The Lingayats were also devotees of Shiva, but theirs was a much later movement in Karnataka, led by Basavanna in the twelfth century.
Option (4) Nathpanthis — Incorrect. The Nathpanthis were a group of renouncers who criticised ritual and orthodox religion; they were not early Tamil hymn singers devoted to Shiva.
NCERT (2026-27): “2.1 The Alvars and Nayanars of Tamil Nadu |