Tradition credits the theologian Nathamuni, active around the tenth century, with gathering the individually composed Alvar hymns into the single organized collection known today as the Nalayira Divya Prabandham, several generations after the last of the Alvars themselves had composed their verses. This act of compilation gave scattered devotional poetry the status of a fixed canon within the Sri Vaishnava tradition, a school of Vaishnava theology and practice that developed substantially around and after this consolidation.
The Divya Prabandham holds a standing within Sri Vaishnavism that later theologians described as comparable to the Sanskrit Vedas, sometimes called the Tamil Veda, an explicit claim that vernacular devotional poetry could carry scriptural authority alongside, rather than beneath, Sanskrit sacred literature. Its hymns remain part of active liturgical recitation in Sri Vaishnava temple worship today, chanted in ritual contexts alongside Sanskrit Vedic material as part of a combined devotional practice.
Nathamuni's compilation work is itself described within Sri Vaishnava tradition as involving more than simple collection, including an account of him learning verses through a visionary or meditative process after finding the Alvar hymns partly scattered and forgotten, a founding narrative that gives the act of compilation its own place in the tradition's sacred history.