The ArutperunJothi Ramalinga Adigalar, popularly known as VALLALAR, the Great Munificient, may be regarded as the foremost of the saints and ages of the nineteenth century, considering the heights, widths, depths and intimacies of his integral realisation of the Divine in all the "inmost, inner, outer, and the outermost parts of his being".

Besides, he was a critic, writer, publisher and commentator and also had knowledge in occultism, alchemy, astrology, and medicine particularly in the nutritional and medical values of herbs and leaves. He was a musician too with a keen musical taste for lyrical songs and he composed lyrics to express, in an easier and popular style, his highest and sublime realisations of the Divine, particularly that of Truth-consciousness (Satya Jnana).