Manikkavachakar, a devotee of Shiva, composed devotional songs in which language?

Manikkavachakar (Manikkavasagar), meaning "one whose words are like rubies", was a great Tamil Shaiva saint-poet who lived around the 9th century CE (some scholars place him earlier). According to tradition, he was a minister of a Pandya king of Madurai. Once, the king sent him with money to buy horses, but he spent it on building a temple for Shiva at Tirupperunturai, after which he gave up worldly life and became a devotee.

His main works are:

"Tiruvasagam" (sacred utterance): a collection of 51 deeply emotional devotional hymns in Tamil, praising Lord Shiva. It is one of the most loved works of Tamil devotional literature. There is a saying in Tamil: "One whose heart does not melt at Tiruvasagam will not melt at anything."

"Tirukkovaiyar": a collection of 400 verses of love poetry with a spiritual meaning.

These works form the eighth book of the "Tirumurai", the twelve-volume collection of Tamil Shaiva sacred literature. The "Tiruvempavai" (part of Tiruvasagam) is sung in the Tamil month of Margazhi, along with Andal's "Tiruppavai".

Manikkavachakar is one of the four great Shaiva saints called the "Samaya Kuravar" or "Nalvar" (the four), along with Appar, Sundarar and Sambandar. The three others are among the 63 Nayanars, the Shaiva saints of Tamil Nadu.

The Bhakti movement in South India (6th-9th century) was led by:

Nayanars: devotees of Shiva (63 in number).

Alvars: devotees of Vishnu (12 in number), including Andal, the only woman Alvar. Their hymns were collected in the "Nalayira Divya Prabandham".

• U. Pope translated Tiruvasagam into English in 1900.

Why not the other options?

• ✗Sanskrit was the language of classical Hindu texts but not of Manikkavachakar's hymns.
• ✗Kannada was the language of the Virashaiva vachanas of Basavanna.
• ✗Telugu was the language of saints such as Annamacharya and Tyagaraja (whose songs are in Telugu).