- Lived:
- c. 1370–1450 (Zvelebil's dating; tradition ranges wider) · Tiruvannamalai, in the Tamil country of the Vijayanagara age — born, ruined, remade and, by tradition, died in the shadow of the same temple
- Field:
- Tamil devotional poetry and music — the Tiruppugazh and the cult of Murugan
- The Big Idea:
- He composed the drum-pattern first and then made Tamil dance on it — hundreds of songs, each built on its own unique rhythmic mold, fusing prayer, confession and percussion so tightly that Carnatic musicians still train their sense of rhythm against him.
- In their words:
- "Murugan — the thief who stole the heart of the hunter's daughter, the great one who is never born and never dies — said to me: 'Be still, beyond words.' Ah — after that, I knew nothing else at all." (Kandhar Anubhūti, verse 12; our rendering)
- If you remember one thing:
- Tradition says a ruined man threw himself from a temple tower and got up singing. The legend cannot be checked; the songs can — about 1,334 survive, each on a different rhythmic scaffold, and that countable, danceable, still-living architecture is the real miracle.