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XXXVIII] Saiva Ideas of Māņikka-vāchakar thoroughly borne out by texts. The action of all living beings depends upon the will of God. God Himself having no purpose to fulfil, does not want karma as an intermediary between His will and His effect.
After considerable difficulty we obtained a copy of Mrgendrāgama from the Government Manuscript Library of Madras. It appears that this Agama was one of the important texts of the Pāśupata sect. But the portions that we have recovered deal mainly with various kinds of rituals and they have no philosophical interest.
The Saiva Ideas of Māņikka-vāchakar
in the Tiru-vāchaka. In the present work the writer has refrained from utilising material from a Dravidian language such as Tamil, Telegu, and Kanarese. This is due to more than one reason. The first is that the writer has no knowledge of the Dravidian languages, and it is too late for him to acquire it, as it might take a whole life time to do so. The second is that this history in all its past volumes has only taken note of material available in Sanskrit. Thirdly, so far as the present author can judge, there is hardly anything of value from the philosophical point of view in Dravidian literature which is unobtainable through Sanskrit. A Tamil work could, however, be taken in hand, if there were any trustworthy translation of it, and if the work were of any great reputation. It is fortunate that Māņikka-vāchakar's Tiru-vāchaka, which is held in very high esteem, has a trustworthy translation by the Rev. G. U. Pope, who devoted his life to the study of Tamil, and may be regarded as a very competent scholar in that language. It appears that Tamil was particularly rich in poetry, and we have many devotional songs both in Tamil and in Kanarese, but I do not know of any systematic philosophical work either in Tamil or in Kanarese which is not presented in Sanskrit. The Tamil literature also abounds in mythical and legendary accounts of many of the saints, which go by the name of Purāņas, such as Periya-purāņa and Tiru-vātavurārpurāņa, Nampiyāndār-nampi-purāņa and Sekkilar-purāņa.
Tiru-vāchaka is a book of poems by Māņikka-vāchakar. It is full of devotional sentiments and philosophical ideas, but it is not
