Sundaranatha, a devotee of Lord Siva, is well versed in the Vedas. He leaves Kailasa to meet his friend sage Agastya. But in life everything happens according to God’s plans and we see this clearly in the case of Sundaranatha, said R. Narayanan in a discourse. Taking pity on a herd of cows, which are mourning the death of a cowherd, Sundaranatha uses his siddhic powers to exit his body and to enter the body of the cowherd, whose name was Moolan. Sundaranatha hides his own body, and takes the cows to Sathanur, from where they have come to the forest for grazing. Once the cows are safe home, Sundaranatha, now in the body of Moolan, stays on the boundary of the village.
Moolan’s wife, who does not know that her husband is dead, and that a great yogi now inhabits his body, asks Moolan to come home. But Moolan refuses. The next day she complains to the elders of the village, who go to the mandapam, where Moolan has spent the night. They look at him and realise that the one before them is no ordinary person. They tell Moolan’s wife that her husband is not mad, as she thinks. He has a connection with divinity. They tell her that he is doing Siva yoga. He is a jnani, who has no worldly desires. The elders further say that he is a Jeevan muktha, who will never come back to resume the life of a householder.
The woman is extremely sorrowful, and the villagers console her. Sundaranatha, who is in Moolan’s body, goes to the forest to get his own body, but he finds that his body, which had so carefully hidden has vanished! He now has no option but to continue in Moolan’s body. He goes to Thiruvavaduturai and seated under a peepul tree, he meditates on Siva. He comes to be known as Thirumoolar. He writes 3000 verses in Tamil, and is one of the 63 Nayanmars.
