The Life
Isaignaniyar, whose name means 'she who is learned in music,' was the mother of the great saint Sundarar and the wife of Sadaiya Nayanar, of a Shaiva Brahmin family in Tirunavalur within the Thirumunaipadi country. A steadfast devotee of Lord Shiva, destroyer of the three cities (Tripurantaka), she is one of only three women among the sixty-three Nayanmars, alongside Karaikkal Ammaiyar and Mangayarkarasiyar. Sekkizhar's Periya Puranam, recognising the inadequacy of poetry to praise her fully, devotes but a single reverent verse to her, naming her husband and her illustrious son. She and Sadaiya raised Sundarar in piety before he was adopted by the chieftain Narasinga Muniyaraiyar. For her exemplary devotion as mother and wife she is venerated among the Arupathimoovar, the sixty-three saints worshipped collectively.