Tiruvannamalai is the place most closely associated with Arunagirinathar’s remembered life. Scholars and reference works generally situate him in the later medieval Tamil world, around the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. Precise life dates are less secure than the continuing presence of his poetry in worship.
Devotional biographies describe Murugan’s grace as the turning point of his life. Their central movement is from distress toward a life devoted to song. These are accounts preserved by a religious community, and their details should be understood within that tradition. They need not all be settled before a reader can encounter the poems themselves.
A helpful distinction is between the poet’s remembered life and the speaker of a particular hymn. A prayer may express regret, urgency or longing without giving a complete account of an event. Listening carefully to its language lets the verse speak before we ask it to serve as a biography.