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The alvars, also spelt as alwars or azhwars ((タミル語:ஆழ்வார்கள்), ''āzvārkaḷ'' (:aːɻʋaːr), ‘those immersed in god’) were Tamil poet-saints of South India who espoused bhakti (devotion) to the Hindu god Vishnu or his avatar Krishna in their songs of longing, ecstasy and service.〔(【引用サイトリンク】title= The Alvars )〕 They are venerated especially in Vaishnavism, which regards Vishnu or Krishna as the Supreme Being. Many modern academics place the Alvars date between 5th century to 10th century CE, however traditionally the Alvars are considered to have lived between 4200 BCE - 2700 BCE. Orthodoxy posits the number of alvars as ten, though there are other references that include Andal and Madhurakavi, making the number twelve. Andal is the only female saint-poet in the 12 Alvars. Together with the contemporary sixty three Shaiva Nayanars, they are among the most important saints from Tamil Nadu. The devotional outpourings of Alvars, composed during the early medieval period of Tamil history, helped revive the bhakti movement, through their hymns of worship to Vishnu and his avatars. They praised the Divya Desams, 108 "abodes" (temples) of these Vaishnava deities. The poetry of the Alvars echoes bhakti to God through love, and in the ecstasy of such devotions they sang hundreds of songs which embodied both depth of feeling and felicity of expressions.〔(【引用サイトリンク】url=http://ccrtindia.gov.in/literaryarts.htm )〕 The collection of their hymns is known as ''Divya Prabandha''. The Bhakti literature that sprang from Alvars has contributed to the establishment and sustenance of a culture that broke away from the ritual-oriented Vedic religion and rooted itself in devotion as the only path for salvation. In addition they helped to make the Tamil religious life independent of a knowledge of Sanskrit. As part of the legacy of the Alvars, five Vaishnava philosophical traditions (sampradayas) have developed at the later stages. ==Etymology== ''Alvars'' literally means 'people who are immersed'. They are so called because they were immersed in their devotion and love to their Lord, Vishnu.〔(【引用サイトリンク】 publisher=ramanuja.org )〕 However recently S.Palaniappan has argued that what was originally Āļvār got changed through hyper correction and folk etymology to Āzhvār. Palaniappan cites inscriptional evidence for a gradual sound change from āļvār to āzhvār over a period of two centuries from the 9th to the 11th century involving references to religious leaders in Vaishnavism, Shaivism and even Jainism and to political personalities. He states: "āzhvār is but a corrupt form of āļvār which has been used interchangeably with nāyanār in secular and religious contexts in the Tamil land" and "... Notwithstanding the Vaishnava claim of unbroken teacher-student tradition, the fact that Nathamuni has used the form āļvār but Piļļān (disciple and younger cousin of Rāmānuja ) ended up using the form āzhvār suggests that there has been an error in transmission somewhere along the teacher-student chain between the two teachers. This error was obviously due to the influence of the sound variation that has occurred in the Srirangam area and elsewhere" 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Alvars」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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