The Divine World of the Alvars

The alvars, alwars or azhwars, (‘those immersed in god’) were Tamil poet-saints who appeared in South India between the sixth and ninth centuries. Espousing bhakti (devotion) to Vishnu or his avatar Krishna in their songs of longing, ecstasy and service, and through their lives and songs of ecstatic love for God, the religious life of India was completely changed. They are venerated especially in Vaishnavism, which regards Vishnu or Krishna as the Supreme Being.

The eight chapters in this book were originally published as articles in the Bulletin of the Ramakrishna Mission Institute of Culture as part of the Institute's research work on India's contribution to world culture.