Papanasam Shivan is the most important Carnatic Composer in Tamil. He has composed over two thousand songs in seventy five raaga-s. He is known as Tamil Thyagaraja.

Papanasam Shivan was born in 1890 in Polaham, Tanjavur district. His real name was Polagam Ramaiah. His father passed away very early, forcing his mother to move to Thiruvananthapuram. Papanasam Shivan studied Sanskrit at Maharajah's college. His musical training was mostly informal. He was guided and influenced by Neelakanta Sivan and Konerirajapuram Vaidyanatha Iyer. The limited formal training he had was from Samba Bhagavatar and Mahadeva Bhagavatar. He also never had any formal training in Tamil.

He was a teacher at Kalakshetra for sometime. During that time he got a big break and started working for the Tamil music indutry. About 800 of his compositions would be for the film industry. He is perhaps the only Carnatic composer to have so extensively worked for the film industry. Papanasam Shivan's carnatic compositions were mostly spontaneous and noted down by others. His compositions were mostly in Tamil, even though he has some Sanskrit compositions. In 1972 he was awarded, belatedly, Sangeetha Kalanidhi by Madras Music academy.