Perumal (deity) in the context of "Vaishnavism"

A Hindu priest may refer to either of the following

• A Pujari or an Archaka is a Hindu temple priest.

• A Purohita or Pujari officiates and performs rituals and ceremonies, and is usually linked to a specific family or, historically, a dynasty.

Traditionally, priests have predominantly come from the Brahmin varna, whose male members are designated for the function in the Hindu texts.

The Patiṟṟuppattu (lit. Ten Tens, sometimes spelled Pathitrupathu,) is a classical Chera poetic work and one of the Eight Anthologies (Ettuthokai) in Sangam literature. A panegyric collection, it contains puram (war and public life) poems. The Chera kings, known as the Cheramal, are the centre of the work. Its invocatory poem is about Mayon, or Perumal (Vishnu).

The Patiṟṟuppattu originally contained ten sections of ten poems, each section dedicated to a decade of rule in ancient Kerala (Cerals, Chera); the first and last sections have been lost. Of the surviving poems, the second-to-sixth-decade-related poems are about the three generations of rulers from the Imayavaramban dynasty. The remaining poems are about the three generations of rulers from the Irumporai dynasty. In the Patirruppattu's palm-leaf manuscripts, each decade ends with a patikam (a verse epilogue followed by a prose colophon. According to U. V. Swaminatha Iyer (who rediscovered the Sangam manuscripts), a commentary was written in or after the 13th century.

Tirumurukātṟuppatai (Tamil: திருமுருகாற்றுப்படை, meaning Guide to Lord Murugan) is an ancient devotional Tamil poem in the Sangam literature genre entirely dedicated to the god Murugan. Murugan is described as the nephew of the god Vishnu, who is called Mayon or the ruler of the worlds. Authored by Nakkiranar, it is the first poem in the Ten Idylls (Pattuppāṭṭu) anthology. The poem is generally dated to the late classical period (2nd to 4th century CE), with some scholars suggesting it may have been composed a few centuries later.

The anthologies and poems of the Sangam literature have numerous references and verses to Murugan – also known as Subrahmanya, Kumara, Skanda, Kartikeya in other parts of India. The Tirumurukarruppatai poem is exclusively about different manifestations and shrines of Murugan. It describes different major temples dedicated to him in the Tamil region, six locations, the natural scenes, worship practices and the culture of the people.