The word Tēvāram can be interpreted in two ways. These hymns continue to be devotionally sung in contemporary times in many Shiva temples of Tamil Nadu. Tevaram contains 796 hymns made up of 8,284 stanzas. This marked its coming of age alongside the expansion and consolidation of Chola imperial power in the 11th century CE. Starting with the Tevaram along with the rest of Tirumurai and ending with the Periya Puranam, Tamil Shaivism acquired a canonical set of sacred texts on ritual, philosophy, and theology. In the 10th century, during the reign of Rajaraja I of the Chola dynasty, these poets' hymns were collected and arranged by Nambiyandar Nambi.
Their work is an important source for understanding the Shaiva Bhakti movement in the early medieval South India. The three poets were not only involved in portraying their personal devotion to Shiva, but also engaged a community of believers through their songs. The Tevaram volumes contain the works of the three most prominent Shaiva Tamil poets of the 7th and 8th centuries: Sambandar, Appar, and Sundarar.
The Tevaram ( Tamil: தேவாரம், Tēvāram), also spelled Thevaram, denotes the first seven volumes of the twelve-volume collection Tirumurai, a Shaiva narrative of epic and Puranic heroes, as well as a hagiographic account of early Shaiva saints set in devotional poetry.
