The Sacred Verse
Pāsuram is the Tamil term used for an individual verse of the Nālāyira Divya Prabandham. The pāsurams are organized into the received works (prabandhams) of the Āzhvārs, addressing Bhagavān, His qualities, avatāras, devotees, and Divya Deśams. Temple and recitation lineages preserve characteristic chanting and, in some settings, musical modes; a single universally fixed rāga is not assigned to every prabandham.
Structure and Form
Pāsurams employ varied Tamil metres and literary forms. Many are arranged in decads, often with a concluding verse that names the Āzhvār and states the fruit of learning or reciting that decad; other works follow different structures. Received modes of recitation and musical rendering vary by prabandham, temple, and lineage.
Status
In the Śrī Vaiṣṇava tradition, a pāsuram is not merely poetry — it is aruḷicceyal, arising from the Āzhvār's divinely granted Bhagavad-anubhava. Reciting pāsurams is honored as equivalent to Vedic recitation within the tradition's Ubhaya-Vedānta and temple-sevā framework. A phalaśruti commonly occurs in the concluding verse of many decads or works; it does not occur at the end of every individual pāsuram.