Andal

Andal is the only woman among the twelve Alvars. She is traditionally understood as the foster daughter of Periyalvar (Vishnuchitta), who found her as a baby under a tulsi plant and raised her. She fell in love with Vishnu as a young woman and refused to marry a human being. She wore the garlands that Periyalvar made for the temple deity before they were offered — making them impure by Brahminic standards, sanctified by her love in devotional logic. She composed the Thirupavai while still a girl. According to tradition, Vishnu himself desired her, and she was married to the deity at Srirangam, where she merged with him and was seen no more. The historical Andal was probably a historical woman poet of extraordinary gifts whose biography was theologized after her death.

The Thirupavai is in the akaval metre and uses a refrain structure — each verse ends with "Eloorembaavai" (ஏலோர் எம்பாவாய்) — the women's ritual call. It is both a song and a dramatic script: each verse is a knock on a different sleeping woman's door, rousing the village one by one until all go together to the river. The Nachiyar Thirumozhi is more intensely erotic and more formally varied — some verses are explicit in their desire for union with Krishna in terms that would be uncomfortable if the "beloved" were human.

Andal is the only woman in Indian religious history whose compositions are considered divinely revealed scripture — equivalent to the Vedas in the Sri Vaishnava tradition. Her Thirupavai is recited as part of temple worship. The Srivilliputhur temple where she lived is one of the 108 Divya Desams (sacred Vaishnava sites). She is proof that the Tamil devotional tradition was, at its origins, not exclusively male.