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Arumuka Navalar receives his title at Thiruvaduthurai

· Thiruvaduthurai

Arumuka Navalar receives his title at Thiruvaduthurai
Eelakesari, Jaffna, British Ceylon, Public domain · Wikimedia Commons

Travelling to Madras to acquire a printing press, Jaffna scholar Arumuka Pillai received the title Navalar from the Thiruvaduthurai Adheenam.

Arumuka Pillai, a Saiva scholar of Jaffna, ran a school and wanted a press of his own to produce Tamil textbooks. With his colleague Sadasiva Pillai he set out for Madras in 1849 to buy one. During the journey the pair halted at the Thiruvaduthurai Adheenam, an important Saiva monastery, and he was invited to give sermons there. Its head honoured him with the title Navalar, the name he carried from then on. He later edited and published numerous Tamil Saiva texts, playing a part in the revival of Tamil printing in the 19th century.

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