Nayanar 33: Somasi Mara (Comacimara)

The 33rd saint is Comacimara Nayanar (Somasi Mara). Arurar’s words, are, “Amparan Comaci Maranukkum atiyen”— ‘I am the servant of Comaci maran of Ampar’. Comaci is another form of Somayaji, one who has performed the Somayajna or Soma sacrifice. Therefore, he must be a Brahmin. His poper name, therefore, must be Maran and this shows that Vedic Brahmins bore Tamil names like Maran and they became great Shaivite saints. It may be that Comaci Maran had some connection with the Pandyas who were called Marars.

Nampiyantar Nampi describes him as a Brahmin who would not open his mouth but for Pancaksara and who was a great friend of Arurar...

Cekkilar speaks of his going to Tiru-varur to become a companion of N ampiyarurar. The tradition, however, went on developing and the later sthalapuranam gives further details about this saint for emphasizing the Shaivite rejection of caste rules—details of which are also referred to in the Sanskrit and Kannada traditions: “Somasimaranayanar or Soma-yaji was a Brahmin Shaivite whose sacrificial hall was deserted by all the Brahmin priests in a body when in the midale of his sacrifice he fed a Chandala Shaivite and his wife in the sacrificial hall. When, however, Shiva appeared in person before the sacrificer, the priests returned and finished the sacrifice, as if nothing happened to pollute it”,