The Saivas claim fourteen treatises which are named either after the author or from some characteristic of the work itself.

All of these were composed in the age immediately following that of Sekkilar. The two authors however, called respectively Tiru-Undiyar and Tirukkaliruppadiyar, called so from the circumstance that he presented his work to God

Nataraja at Chidambaram from the steps supported by elephants on both sides, form a sort of transition between the twelve books of prayer we have dealt with before and the other twelve books of science that constitute the Saiva Sastras proper. The most important of the sastraic section of Saiva canonical literature is the work of Meykandadeva entitled Sivagnanabodham. This is a work composed of twelve Sutras framed in Sanskrit forming part of Raurava Agamam. He not only wrote the Sutras but also provided a Vartika, prose passages in explanation. He is said to have provided the work with a churnika in addition. This work which constitutes the basis of the agamic or sastraic portion of the Saiva Siddhanta was somewhat elaborately expounded in the work of an elder contemporary scholar who became the disciple of Meykanda. His name is Arulnandi Sivacharya, and the work is known by the name Sivagnana Siddhiyar. This work is composed of two sections. The first part is called parapaksham, and examines the various other systems in vogue such as Lokayata Baud-dha, Samana (Jain), Bhattacharya, Prabhakara, Sabdabrahmavadi, Mayavadi (Advaita),Bhaskara, Nirisvara Sankhya and Pancharatram, and condemns them all as not meeting the religious needs of humanity. The second part is called svapaksham in which he deals with the Saiva Siddhanta, and establishes the truth of it as against the former. The last among this group of sastraic works is what is called Sankalpa-nirakaranam which like Sivagnana Siddhi was composed to convert votaries of other systems by a member of the Brahman community of "the three thousand" of Chidambaram by name Umapati Sivacharya. He was also an author of several other works bearing on the same subject. These three together with the preceptor of the last by name Maraignana Sambandar constitute the four pontiffs who are called by the Tamils Santana Kuravar (succession of pontiffs). This nomenclature for these four is in contrast to the four Samaya Kuravar, preceptors of religion, a name collectively applied to the four devotees Sambandar, Appar, Sun-darar, the three Tevaram hymners, and Manikka-vasakar, the author of Tiruvasakam. The former founded the system of religion, or at least expounded it, and thus provided the philosophy indispensable to the successful maintenance of it as against controversialists of other creeds.