Kannappa is the Periya Puranam's most quoted saint and the tradition's sharpest self-criticism. He is a hunter of the Nishada community who finds a lingam in the forest and worships it the only ways he knows: carrying water in his mouth, cleaning it with his foot and his hair, and offering roasted meat, having tasted each piece first to make sure it is good. Every one of those acts is a serious ritual violation. The brahmin priest who tends the shrine is appalled and prays about it, and is told to hide and watch. When the image's eye starts bleeding, Kannappa digs out his own and presses it into the socket; when the second eye bleeds he marks the place with his toe so he can find it after blinding himself, and Shiva catches his hand. The story is told in Tamil Shaiva temples as doctrine, not as a curiosity, and its meaning is not subtle: the offering that broke every rule was the one that was accepted.