Tirunavukkarashu Appar ("father") (7th century) was
the given name of the Nayanar poet-saint who was most generally referred to as
Appar.
Appar was one of the first of the Nayanars, a group of
sixty-three southern Indian poet-saints who lived in the seventh and eighth
centuries and were devotees (bhakta) of the deity Shiva.
The Nayanars, along with their contemporaries the Alvars,
who were Vishnu followers, were instrumental in the renewal of Hindu religion
by their fervent devotion (bhakti) to a personal deity, which they expressed
through songs sung in Tamil.