It is well-known that Thirugnana Sambandhar was a great Shiva bhakta, an accomplished tamil poet and the Thevaram contains his devotional outpourings on Shiva. The time period of Shri Thirumangai Azhwar, the last of the great azhwars, coincided with that of Sambandhar and their paths crossed. This write-up aims to bring out the events of that meeting and the consequences thereof.
The traditional narration of the incident is summarized in the following blog – https://guruparamparai.wordpress.com/2013/01/23/thirumangai-azhwar . Quoting from that blog,